


The Aquarium (Aqua's Prompt Fills)

by AquaWolfGirl



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Because someone asked for them on here so that they could find them more easily, Drabbles, F/M, Fantasy AU, Historical AU, I'll add more AU tags as I go through, Modern AU, Multi, This is really just a mishmash of all the prompts I've answered, prompt fills
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-06-27 17:09:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 31,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15689757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AquaWolfGirl/pseuds/AquaWolfGirl
Summary: Some beautiful soul asked me if I could put all of my Tumblr prompts in an AO3 story so that they could find their favorites more easily. And so here we are! Basically a collection of drabbles/short prompt fills, ranging in different AUs and different couples (but mostly Rey and Ben/Kylo). I do not take credit for the name - some wonderful anon suggested it.





	1. laugh.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been meaning to do this for a while, but I guess it just kept on slipping through my fingers! Thank you, kind anon, for the suggestion and for kicking my ass into gear! I hope you all enjoy these silly little prompt fills - most are 1,000 words or less.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some beautiful soul asked me if I could put all of my Tumblr prompts in an AO3 story so that they could find their favorites more easily. And so here we are! Basically a collection of drabbles/short prompt fills, ranging in different AUs and different couples (but mostly Rey and Ben/Kylo). I do not take credit for the name - some wonderful anon suggested it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been meaning to do this for a while, but I guess it just kept on slipping through my fingers! Thank you, kind anon, for the suggestion and for kicking my ass into gear! I hope you all enjoy these silly little prompt fills - most are 1,000 words or less.
> 
> I apologize in advance for any OOC lines, traits, or interactions - since these are short prompts and more for entertainment and fun than serious reading, I hold them to a lower standard than the fics I put hours of writing and editing time into.

Let's start off strong with one of my more popular ones. I don't understand why everyone loved this strange concept so much, but it's cute and fluffy and people seemed to like it, so enjoy!

"lmao, instead of Neighbor for number 11 I thought it said Necromancy and thought "ah yes how romantic, practicing your raising the dead skills on a dead body then falling in love with said corpse.""

Posted on May 21st, 2018

* * *

 “Uh, Poe? Is it possible to … miss, during necromancy?”

“What do you mean miss?” Poe asks on the other line, sounding suspicious.

She stares at the man in front of her who is most definitely not her parents, still dressed in a suit from the funeral, pale as the dead but looking more and more alive with each second as he sits on top of his own grave and stares at his hands in awe.

“I mean miss. Like … I missed my parents graves and accidentally brought the guy beside them to life.”

“… what the fuck, Rey?”

-

A dead man is sitting at her kitchen counter. A dead man is nursing a cup of coffee between his hands. A dead man is sitting on one of her stools as she takes his heartbeat, or lack thereof, and tries not to notice how sleek his hair is for being dead.

“So that’s how you got out so easily,” she explains, of him climbing from his grave. “The dirt was fresh.”

Not two days in the ground.

He was in between a girl and her ex, and the ex had a gun. And then that was it.

“I’m not sure who did it, but they did a nice job. Stitching it up, I mean,” she tries, nearly choking as his chest is revealed to her. Not because of the bullet hole that’s been stitched up very cleanly, but because she should not be admiring the glory that is a dead man’s broad, pale, strong chest.

She wanted her parents back, she reminds herself. The parents who dropped her at the fire station, the parents she just found thanks to the internet, the parents who died in a drunk driving accident not a week ago before she could even curse them out and ask them why they fucking left her…

She wanted her parents back.

But instead she got Ben Solo.

Ben Solo doesn’t eat. Ben Solo doesn’t drink. Ben Solo doesn’t sleep. Of course not, he’s dead.

He has no heartbeat, and his skin is cool, and he’s pale (but he tells her, in the softest, most gentle voice she’s ever heard, that he was already pale to begin with, so it’s not too much of a difference. She thinks she should have laughed, but instead she just stared at him.)

Ben Solo is a strange mix of zombie and vampire, and she wonders if she should be writing all of this down for research instead of watching Ben Solo make her pancakes, the dead man softly apologizing that they weren’t ready when she woke up.

Ben Solo may be dead as a doornail, but Ben Solo is a complete and utter sweetheart and while she’s frustrated she didn’t get to yell at her parents, she’s kind of glad she missed.

Especially when he makes her pancakes.

-

There’s a legend she never really paid attention to. Some scrap in some book that Poe told her is a good book for stories, but not so good in the way of actual useful knowledge. “Sure, you could find a few bits and pieces,” he’d explained, flipping through the old book she picked up at Goodwill for five bucks a few years ago. “But most of this is just bullshit.”

So the legend may be bullshit, she thinks, as she reads again of the necromancer who lost her lover to war, and then tried everything she could to bring him back. In the end, as it always is, it was just to love him. No amount of potions or spells or calling of demons could bring him back, but her love could. Blech.

She too thought it was bullshit when Poe started laughing at it. And bullshit it may be, but now she finds she likes the idea of loving someone back to life, especially when that someone can be found staring out the window of her little apartment, wishing he could go outside without someone recognizing him. She likes thinking of it as she eats with him, likes the idea of sharing food with him instead of him just sitting across from her and watching her because they don’t dare let a bite slip past his lips when there’s nothing to … to process it. 

She doesn’t want to find out what happens if he does eat. 

She likes thinking of the legend when they hold hands, likes thinking of what it would be like to hold hands with him on their way to brunch or something, like a normal couple.

She especially likes the idea of loving someone back to life when they curl up together, because Ben Solo likes to make her shriek with his cold, pale toes touching her skin.

“Ben!”

“Sorry, sorry.”

He’s really not, and they both know it.

-

If they were the romantic novel sort, they would find out he was alive by the flush of his cheeks when he kissed her, or the warmth of his lips. They would find out by her head resting on his heart as they slept, and her being woken up by its sudden beating. There would be tears and rejoicing and making out viciously, and she would be in a long white nightgown and he would have his hair sleek and curled and the music would swell and then there would be a soft epilogue for them.

In reality, she’s studying for an exam, her hair pulled up into the bumpiest and most uneven topknot in history. She has her pen between her lips, Ben steadily making a pile of the flash cards she’s making, his cool fingers making sure the stack is even because she’s noticed he’s a bit of a perfectionist. Her tea is long cold, the Redbull half empty beside her, and she’s cursing not studying for this exam sooner even though she has another week to study for it.

The thing with being dead and not being able to drink or eat or sleep is that the man is never thirsty, never tired, never hungry, never complaining about the bodily functions she complains about.

So when he mutters, “Damn, I’m thirsty. I’m getting some water, do you want some,” they’re both completely and totally caught off guard.

Except they’re caught off guard twenty seconds later than they should be.

“Yeah, sure, with ice, please,” she mumbles around the pen in her mouth. She hears the shifting of his body as he stands from their study nook on the floor, and she hears his feet cross from the carpet of the living room onto the linoleum of the kitchen before they both realize what he said.

The pen drops from her lips.

She gets up so quickly from the table that she damn near trips over it, and he has to rush back and catch her. And then she hears it, her ear pressed against his chest.

It takes them less than an hour to realize that with blood flowing to his heart, and through his veins, that blood can flow to other things, too.

 


	2. just breathe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize in advance for any OOC lines, traits, or interactions - since these are short prompts and more for entertainment and fun than serious reading, I hold them to a lower standard than the fics I put hours of writing and editing time into.

**_43._ ** _“I am not losing you again!”_  
**_65._ ** _“Look at me—just breathe, okay?”_

Posted July 16th 2018

* * *

This was a horrible idea.

Tell him to get himself somewhere in the city, he can work it out just fine. The city is a grid. Streets go up and down numerically. He can get himself to 34th and 2nd or 45th and 67th just fine.

This, though – this is bullshit.

“I’m going to kill them.”

“I think it’s cute,” Rey offers from beside him as she looks down at the map they’ve been given. “It was a great way to announce it.”

“No, a great way to announce it is with a photoshoot, or a party, or a cake,” Kylo says as they continue to go through the cornmaze. “I can’t imagine how much they paid for this.”

“They didn’t pay anything except for the entrance fee, they’re just standing at the end with the envelopes and then everyone will open the cards at dinner,” Rey explains. Through the stalks, he can see a few other people, laughing as they hit a dead end. “Besides, you look sexy in plaid.”

“I feel itchy.”

“Oh, come on, Kylo, let’s go, we don’t want to be last.”

He doesn’t mind being last. He’d prefer first, though, because it means they get out of this hell faster than anyone else does.

The paths are winding, and confusing as hell. He doesn’t like them one bit. Yes, he knows they’re in the shape of a jack-o-lantern to celebrate the coming Halloween, but that doesn’t mean he likes it.

Rey, however, is having the time of her life, saying, “Right! Left! Right!” at every turn.

“You know, you could just say ‘right’, or ‘left,’” Kylo grumbles. “You’re not in the army.”

“Isn’t that ‘left, right, left’?”

“What the hell is the difference?”

He pissed her off. Oh, he’s definitely pissed her off. He’s not sure if it was his grumbling, his smartass attitude, or the fact that he really, really doesn’t want to be here that finally gets her, but it does. And as punishment, he’s left in the corn.

“Rey?!”

It probably was not the best idea to be such an asshole that he was ditched, considering she has the map.

“Rey!!!”

The autumn sun is beating down on him. He feels hot, despite the cool air. The red and black flannel shirt isn’t helping. “Rey!!”

“Kylo?”

She’s somewhere to his left, and he rushes towards her voice, only to find a dead end. “Rey!”

“I’m over here!”

That … that seriously doesn’t help him.

Through the dead stalks of corn he can see her, though, can see the tan of her leather jacket, and despite the rules, he pushes through the stalks and comes out the other side. His fiancée shrieks, before she’s staring at him wide-eyed, her hand against her chest. “Kylo!”

Fuck, she smells good. So much better than the corn they’re surrounded by, so much sweeter as he buries his face in her neck and holds her tight. “I’m not losing you again.”

“Losing me? I lost you, I thought you were right behind me,” she says, her hand coming up to cup the back of his head. “And you’re not supposed to go through the corn.”

“I fucking know that.” It’s almost a snarl.

“Look at me—just breathe, okay?”

Her hands are soft on his cheeks, guiding his head up so that she can look him in the eyes. Her thumbs stroke his cheeks, her smile sweet as he stares down at her.

“We’re going to get out of here,” she says, her British accent soft and soothing. “And then we’re going to have cider, and caramel apples. And then we’re going to go into the barn and have the proper dinner where Finn and Poe will be doing the baby announcement, all right?”

“Damn it, Rey, could you say it any louder?!”

The voice comes from the next path over, and Kylo looks up to see the vague outlines of Poe and Finn through the stalks.

“Oh, please, nobody else is around.”

“Someone still could have heard! It’s a surprise, Rey!”

“You called me the minute it came back positive and started shrieking!”

He really, really hopes it’s alcoholic cider.


	3. childhood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize in advance for any OOC lines, traits, or interactions - since these are short prompts and more for entertainment and fun than serious reading, I hold them to a lower standard than the fics I put hours of writing and editing time into.

__**30.** “Can I sit here? The other tables are full.”  
__**40.** “Have I ever lied to you?”  


Posted July 15th 2018

* * *

 

It starts as most elementary school friendships do.

“Can I sit here? The other tables are full.”

Rey Jackson looks up from her hastily-made peanut butter sandwich to stare at the boy standing on the other side of the table. Unlike her paper bag, he has a proper lunchbox. One of the nice ones, the puffy ones that keep food cold. A pang of jealousy hits her right in the chest, before she nods, her little mouth stuck together with potato bread and peanut butter.

“Thanks.”

He’s weird-looking. His ears and nose are too big for his face. Rey takes another bite of her sandwich, watching him as he pulls out carrots, in their own container with a spot specifically for the ranch dressing. And then there’s a sandwich, cut perfectly in half, the crusts cut off. And then there’s the cupcake, chocolate and chocolate icing with rainbow sprinkles, the icing in a perfect, picturesque swirl. It has its own container to keep it from getting squished in the lunchbox, the plastic lid coming off with a loud ‘pop’ as the boy sets it down beside him.

She made her sandwich herself, and has been hoping all day that her foster father Unkar won’t discover the two slices of bread missing, won’t notice that the peanut butter jar’s label is to the back instead of the front.

The boy starts to eat. Rey watches him, eating the last few bites of her sandwich and licking the peanut butter from her fingers. She’s glad they have snack time, that the snack is provided. It may be a little cup of crackers, or gummies, but at least it’s something.

“Hey, do you want these?”

The little carton of carrots is shown to her.

Her answer is immediate. “You don’t want them?”

The boy shrugs. “I’m not that hungry.”

She is. She’s very, very hungry, and so she nods. The carrots are pushed her way, and she bites into the first one with a loud crunch.

“Want half of my cupcake?”

She swears she falls in love with him right then and there.

-

Their town is tiny, and word spreads fast. The orphan girl is friends with the mayor’s son. They’re not bad words, no. Perhaps a little judgmental, a little in shock, but not openly bad.

They fade away after two years of friendship, after two years of climbing trees. Han makes them a treehouse, filled with books and a CD player and beanbag chairs, and she feels more at home in that treehouse than she does in her room at Unkar’s.

When she breaks her arm after tripping playing tag, it’s Ben’s mom who takes her to the emergency room. When she gets her first period, it’s Ben’s mom who sits her down and takes her to go get supplies, who helps her hide them from Unkar when he yells at her that he doesn’t want to see that stuff. When it’s time for the prom, it’s Leia Organa, mayor of Alderaan who takes her to get her dress, zipping her up in the dressing room and promising no, it’s not just Rey who’s seeing the gaps in the chest, it’s all right, let’s just try on the next one, shall we?

It’s Ben, though, who takes her to prom. Ben, who came to her rescue after Jesse bailed on her. Ben, who put on his dad’s old tux that’s just a little too tight, who hands her a corsage made out of roses from Leia’s garden, who offers her his hand as he guides her to the black sedan he got his junior year.

“You look beautiful.”

“Really?” Her voice is disbelieving, almost self-deprecating. “Jesse didn’t think I was pretty enough.”

“When have I ever lied to you?” he asks, opening her door and helping her in, making sure the white chiffon of her dress doesn’t get slammed in the car door. “Besides, Jesse’s an asshole.”

Jesse is an asshole, she decides, as they walk in and she sees him dancing with Katie. Jesse is a complete and utter asshole.

But Ben’s not an asshole. Ben wraps his arms around her and dances with her, keeping her close no matter what the beat of the song is. By the end of the night, she’s just leaning back against him, his arms around her waist and their hips moving together as the songs start to slow down. He rests his chin on top of her head, and she puts her hands on his as they sway from side to side.

She gets into Niima University. He gets into Corellia.

And then she gets into Corellia, because Leia knew this was going to happen, and applied for her.

They don’t kiss in the treehouse, like she imagined, because the treehouse is rotting and falling apart after so many years of rain and snow and sleet and sun. But they do kiss on his front porch swing, the graduation party still going on inside.

“I accepted Corellia’s offer. It’s not as much of a scholarship, but-“

Ben kisses her again. “It doesn’t matter, we’ll help you,” he mutters against her lips. She can practically taste his smile.

They do help her. Like they’ve always helped her. And like he’s always helped her, offering her what she didn’t even know she needed.


	4. en garde.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize in advance for any OOC lines, traits, or interactions - since these are short prompts and more for entertainment and fun than serious reading, I hold them to a lower standard than the fics I put hours of writing and editing time into.

__**19.** “I could kill you right now!”  
**26.** “I think I’ve been holding myself from falling in love with you all over again.”  
**35.** “Before I do this, I need you to know that I have always loved you.”

Posted July 15th 2018

* * *

 

“I could kill you right now!” Rey snarls.

“I’d rather you not!” Ben looks over at his wife, who’s dealing with the guards, her rapier still at her hip but one of her throwing knives in her hand. She’s always been better with shorter blades, if the three slain guards at her feet are any indication.

“You were the one who climbed almost directly into a guard’s lap!” Rey calls from across the courtyard, her hand reaching for her rapier to counter the guard’s thrust.

“The wall is high, forgive me that I couldn’t see over it to see if someone was there!” Ben shouts back as he steps to the side, narrowly avoiding getting skewered. “Ha!”

Their target is inside, more than likely gorging himself on rich and fatty foods, bought with money stolen from the city’s people. This job will be both easy and rewarding, the gold promised to them in two parts – one for before the job, and one for after. Their reputation precedes them, it seems.

There is nothing more attractive than his wife slaying a guard, Ben thinks, watching her as her knife slides along the man’s throat, blood splattering and spurting as he collapses. Especially when said guard is following the orders of such a despicable, violent, and selfish man.  
“I’ve been trying to keep myself from falling in love with you all over again,” Ben says as Rey waltzes over, cleaning the blade on the inside of her red tunic. They paid a pretty penny for the embroidered jacket over top, her waist cinched in by a leather belt. “For it’s impossible to marry you twice. Still, I get the feeling I should try and woo you once more.”

“There is always renewing our vows to each other, whether we are in the presence of a churchman, or simply in each other’s,” Rey says, grinning as she sheaths her knife and leans up to kiss him sweetly. “Come, now, we have a job to finish.”

The rich man’s villa is swarming with guards, but with their skills, and their partnership, they manage to get through them. They find their target, a spoiled and fat prince reeking of corruption and thievery, in his office high above the rest of the villa, overlooking the blue Mediterranean. Rey’s searching his body for a recognizable trinket of sorts, to bring to their hirer for proof when there’s the sound of something much, much heavier than a fist against the wooden door.

“I wonder who that could be?” Ben asks, tone entirely sarcastic as Rey uses her knife to slice the man’s initials off of his shirt.

“I don’t want to stick around to find out. Any grand plan on how to get out of here? That’s the only door.”

He does have a plan. However, it’s not a very good plan, and he’s not entirely sure it will work. Still, as the city authorities yell through the wooden door that they’re going to break it down, he can see no other choice.

“Before I do this, I need you to know that I love you.”

“What the hell are you-“

“Forgive me!”

The assassin grabs his wife around her waist, rushing towards the window as she shrieks, grabbing onto his arm. “We are at least three stories up, what are you doing?!”

“You’ll see!”

The straw beneath breaks their fall, but only slightly. The wind is still knocked out of him, the fact that Rey lands on top of him not helping in the slightest. Still, despite the aching in his chest, they’re alive. Farther from their horses than he would like, but they’re alive.

“The fact that you love me does not excuse the fact that you just jumped out a window without telling me,” Rey grumbles, pushing herself off of him. Straw sticks to her jacket, her trousers, and her wool hat, the feather somehow still intact. “Or the fact that you dragged me with you.”

“I could say something about you breaking my ribs,” Ben wheezes as he’s hoisted up. The shouts of both the villa guards and the city authorities are getting closer, getting louder. “But I do love you, you know that, correct?”

It’s not the longest, or most passionate kiss she’s ever given him. But he’ll take the short peck she gives him in answer before she’s dragging him through the stables, and to freedom (hopefully.)


	5. art show.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize in advance for any OOC lines, traits, or interactions - since these are short prompts and more for entertainment and fun than serious reading, I hold them to a lower standard than the fics I put hours of writing and editing time into.

**_13._ ** _“I could kiss you right now!”  
_ **_39._ ** _“How long have you been standing there?”_

Posted July 15th 2018

* * *

 

It’s … it’s not good. Granted, it’s just a school show. It’s not a gallery opening, or an great exhibition, or anything like that. It’s just the students putting up what they’ve created, matted and labeled properly and everything like that. There’s some refreshments, and everyone’s a little dressed up, but it’s not anything too fancy, no.

The fact that no one’s coming to look at her work doesn’t mean anything at all.

The printing class was just something new to add to the mix, that’s it, really. And she really did enjoy it, enjoyed painstakingly setting everything down on the press before rolling it through, her arms stronger for spending countless hours cranking the paper through. She spent more on ink and paper than she really wanted, than she could really afford, but everything needed to be perfect.

And everything is, at least to her.

The rest of the students have families, siblings and friends who linger around their work and sip cucumber lemon water and nibble on tea cookies. Parents are here, too, flying in from home states to support their children.

She doesn’t have anyone.

Finn, Poe, and Rose are off to the beach this weekend, and that’s fine, really. She would have gone too if the final gallery show wasn’t a significant part of her grade. The reservations were already made, the house already rented, it’s fine, really. It would have cost more to cancel than it would have been to go. They promised her they’d hold their own little gallery opening when they came back, with better wine and better food.

She’s holding them to that promise, Rey thinks, as she stands beside her work. The heels she bought specifically for this are starting to hurt, and the dress is starting to restrict her breathing in the warming room. It’s a size too small, but it’s all she had that would be appropriate. She couldn’t exactly wear ink-stained jeans and a sweatshirt to the opening.

She looks down, brushing some non-existent dust off of her skirt, trying to look as busy as possible so she doesn’t look fucking miserable.

“This is really nice work.”

Her head snaps up. There are two people with their work displayed next to hers, so realistically, it’s probably them. But she knows that voice, she knows that soft, deep, gentle voice—

Professor Ren is standing in front of her work. Professor Ren, the head of the illustration department. One of the most esteemed artists they have on campus, with a resume that goes on for pages and pages, projects every student grew up with and loved.

“How long have you been standing there?” Rey demands, looking up at the man who taught her the first two years of her artistic career, the man who slammed her during critiques in the most gentle voice she’s ever heard.

“Not long,” Professor Ren explains, his gaze on her work. He tilts his head up, and the gallery lights catch on his glasses, making her unable to see his dark eyes. “This is extraordinary, Rey. The level of detail is impressive.”

Many, many sleepless nights carving into linoleum, she wants to say, but she doesn’t, lingering near her little name plate as he continues to look at the piece. “Thank you.”

“Your work’s improved significantly,” he explains. “Not that it was bad before.”

It’s more than he ever said to her in critiques. She remembers crying in her dorm room after one harsh one, even though she knew he was right about the colors of the shadows being all off, about her lines being messy, about the style being too juvenile…

“Thank you,” she says again, looking to him out of the corner of her eye.

He’s dressed up, in a black blazer and slacks and a gray dress shirt, a glass of champagne in his hand as he observes her work. He steps a little closer, turning to look at her to see if it’s all right. “May I get a closer look?”

“Yes, sure, of course,” she rambles, watching as the man who’s plagued her dreams for the past four years steps closer, looking at all the detail she put into the large cityscape work. That one was a pain, each window containing a little scene the size of her thumbnail, each detail painstaking.

“Incredible…”

She could kiss him right now, she really could, for coming and looking at her work, for complimenting her. She doesn’t realize she’s said, said “I could kiss you right now,” out loud until he turns and looks at her, his eyes wide in shock behind the slim, silver glasses that he’s always wearing.

“Sorry?” His voice is pitched higher than she’s ever heard it.

Fuck, she hopes he’s the only one who heard, hopes that the chatter in the small gallery space covered her completely inappropriate blunder from anyone else. Of course, it didn’t cover it from the one person who matters in this situation.

“I…” She has genuinely no idea how she’s going to get herself out of this one. How she’s going to dig herself out of the hole she just stumbled into, telling her old teacher that she could kiss him for coming over and saving her the embarrassment of standing alone all night. “I don’t know where that came from, I-I’m sorry?”

“How much?”

Rey stares at him, saying, “I’m sorry?” for an entirely different reason.

“’Nightlights’,” he says, looking back to the print of the cityscape. “How much are you asking for it?”

“I don’t … you want to buy it?”

“If you’re not sure about the price now, maybe we could discuss a deal over dinner?” he asks, the words coming out too fast, too short. He’s nervous, too, she thinks, his gaze still on the print.

He’s … he’s not her teacher anymore, is she? And she’s in a different department, now. There’s no reason they can’t.

“The show is until 7,” she says, simply, feeling her sweaty palms and casually wiping them on the light brown fabric of her dress.

“Mind if I ask you a few questions about your process, then?” Professor Ren’s eyes are dark.

“No.” Her heartbeat is fast, but her smile is wide. “No, go ahead.”

“All right, then.” A little nervous cough, and then he gestures to the one closest to her. It means he takes three steps closer to her, his arm nearly brushing hers. “Tell me about this one, where did the idea come from?”

“Well…”


	6. ahoy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize in advance for any OOC lines, traits, or interactions - since these are short prompts and more for entertainment and fun than serious reading, I hold them to a lower standard than the fics I put hours of writing and editing time into.

__**17.** “This is all your fault!”  
**19.** “I could kill you right now!”  


Posted July 9th 2018

* * *

 

“This is all your fault!”

“How is this my fault?” he demands, kicking the naval officer he just skewered off of his sword and to the deck of their ship. 

“You were being loud in the tavern! Someone told them where we were going!” Rey calls as she grabs onto one of the many ropes hanging from the sails. It gives her just enough leverage to lift herself up and kick another naval officer in the head, sending him down to the deck, too.

“I didn’t even say where we were going!” Ben yells back. “I was talking about where we’re planning on marrying!” 

“Marrying?!”

It’s accompanied by a _thunk_ , and he looks over to see his first mate clinging to the main mast, the bottom surrounded by naval officers intent on taking all of them into custody and bringing their ship into harbor. He’s not going to let that happen, not on his life.

“Rey!” Her name carries over the sounds of cannon fire and swords clashing, and he watches her head whip around to him. Clever girl that she is, she sees an opportunity and takes it. 

The leather belt she’s wearing is unbuckled, and draped over the rope that ties the sail to the mast. She has to drop her sword if she wants to hang on with both hands, but it means not getting seized by the officers, and that’s apparently a price she’s willing to pay. 

His boot meets the chest of another officer as he walks down the stairs from the top deck, watching from above as his first mate sails down the line. He reaches up to grab her legs when she gets close enough, his arms wrapped around her thighs as her hands find his shoulders for support. 

“Nice thinking,” he breathes, staring up at Rey as she grins at him.

“Nice catch,” she replies, before he’s dropping her down and passing her the knife he keeps at his hip. 

It isn’t much, but it’s enough. 

-

“Since when are we going to be married?”

His shirt is soaking with hers in a bowl of cool water, in hopes of getting the blood stains out. The tub isn’t truly big enough for the both of them, but they make do, his knees bent and her between his thighs, resting back against his chest. 

They’ll both have bruises. The nick she received on her arm from a captain’s lucky strike is bandaged, tied tightly to stop the blood from soaking through. He kisses the skin above it, tanned and soft and sweet. 

“I was drunk,” Ben offers, hearing her as she plays in the water that’s now more warm than hot. But it’s still nice, holding her, his lips finding her bare shoulder.

“Drunk ramblings are often sober thoughts,” she tells him. He can still smell gunpowder, can still smell the metallic tang of blood. A truce was established, but not before several lives were lost, on each side. They will try again, one day, probably soon. And the great pirate Kylo Ren will take them on once more. 

“I’m not telling you more.”

“I could kill you, right now, you know,” his first mate tells him, and he feels the nick of a blade against his thigh. He doesn’t even question where she got the blade from. He doesn’t want to know. “Tell me. Do you want to marry me?”

Does he want to marry her?

The short answer is yes, he does. When he picked up the scrappy little ten year old from the market all those years ago, he never expected she would so quickly climb the ranks. A master at climbing the sails, at maintaining her balance on the masts, at charming the rest of the crew with her bright smile and golden freckles, she became invaluable. He wasn’t interested in her then, of course he wasn’t, he was just starting his role as the Great Pirate Kylo Ren, and she was still a child. 

But then she grew. She grew, and she grew. More often than not he’d find her wearing his clothes, simply because the ones he just bought her didn’t fit anymore. He’d walk in and see her wearing one of his shirts and nothing else, the trousers too wide to even be tied on. “Nobody else has spare clothes,” she told him, crossing her arms over her chest as he tried not to stare at long, strong, golden legs. 

She grew and she grew into one of the finest first mates he thinks the world has ever known, becoming his partner. His partner in bed, as well as his partner in planning, in pirating. Not only does he love waking up next to her, but he loves when she plans their next route, loves when she takes charge, loves when she smiles as she climbs the sails to feel the wind in her auburn hair.

Does he want to marry her?

If pressed, if asked the greatest treasure he ever discovered or stole … well, when sober, he would say it was the Grave Pirate’s treasure, a collection of jewels and gems and coins that one man buried in his own grave. 

However, if one were to ask him after too much rum, he would gladly say the greatest treasure he ever took was Miss Rey Jakksun.

“Yes,” he says simply. “I want to marry you.”

It’s nerve wracking, more than any storm or any attack from the navy, to wait for her answer. He can hear the waves against the side of the boat, can hear the fire crackling nearby, can hear the gentle, delicate sound of water as she cups some in her hand and then lets it trickle through her fingers. 

“Rey.”

“Mhm?” 

“… will you marry me?”

There isn’t much room to turn in the tub. It’s hardly as graceful as she was probably imagining, to sit up and then turn so she can face him. Some water sloshes out onto the wood of his cabin, and then he’s being kissed. Softly. Sweetly. Lovingly. 

“If we can find a man of the church who won’t turn us in, then yes,” she whispers. He can feel her grin against his lips. “Yes, I will marry you.”

“Oh, thank God,” he breathes, and she giggles as he wraps his arms around her. More water sloshes out, so the tub is filled with more bare skin than it is water, but she laughs against his lips as he kisses her again and again. 

“Will that make me Mrs. Ben Solo, or Mrs. Kylo Ren?” Rey asks.

“Whichever one will make you happier.” That seems to be the best answer, he thinks, even though he already knows which one she will say.

“Mrs. Ben Solo,” she says, surprising the pirate captain as she slips her hand into his hair and leans in for another kiss. “I want to be Mrs. Ben Solo.”

“… as you wish.”


	7. queenly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize in advance for any OOC lines, traits, or interactions - since these are short prompts and more for entertainment and fun than serious reading, I hold them to a lower standard than the fics I put hours of writing and editing time into.

_**33.** “I’m not going to stop poking you until you give me some attention.”  
**49.** “I may be an idiot, but I’m your idiot.”_

_Posted July 8th 2018_

* * *

 

She is _infuriating._

Her people love her, and he can see why. She has no royal blood, the king having scooped her up from the markets when she was younger in an attempt to make himself more favorable to the people. Plutt was a horrid ruler, and while adopting the small street urchin out of the ‘goodness of his heart’ gained him a bit of favor, it wasn’t for long. 

His appetite did him in about two years ago, now, and since then Queen Rey of Jakku has been working to repair what he destroyed, and distribute what he took away. 

He has watched her visit orphanages, delivering treats and sweets by hand, inquiring as to whether there is enough food, enough water, enough blankets. He’s stood by the doorway with the caretakers as she sat down, her skirts pooled around her, and read the children stories. She’s honestly not much older than a child herself, becoming Queen at 14, but she holds herself with the grace and dignity of someone ten years her senior. 

Or at least she does when she’s in public.

“I’m not going to stop poking you until you go riding with me.”

She’s already in her riding outfit, her arms crossed over her chest as she stares down at him. She can’t go without her personal guard, it would be improper, and dangerous. But he’s in the middle of a chapter, and he really, really doesn’t want to remove himself from his prime seat overlooking the palace gardens.

“Let me finish this chapter, Your Highness.”

“It’s going to rain, soon. I would like to go now,” Rey says firmly, her dark brows furrowing, now. 

He can’t say no to her. She is above him, his Queen, and he is her guard. And so he sighs, and slips the red ribbon between the pages of his book, before he tells her to give him a moment to get his riding boots on. 

-

She is 15, dancing in a dress the soft yellow of fresh butter, with golden chains woven into her hair and a smile brighter than sunshine. Suitors are already calling, sending messages and gifts, and he watches from afar as she spins and twirls between three of them. 

She told him in confidence that she does not wish for love. She told him she would be happy if she wed her best friend. When gently pressed as to who her best friend was, she gave him the oddest little look, amber eyes narrowing for just a moment before she said softly, sadly, “No one you know.”

He is her guard, standing and watching her. And yet he doesn’t see the man in the window, an arrow notched, until just before the assassin lets go. 

_“Rey!”_

They hit the floor together, the arrow clattering against the marble floor of the ballroom as she pants beneath him, eyes wide and the soft fabric of her gown surrounding the both of them. 

In the ballroom, she brushes it off, commanding the guards to find the man before telling the musicians to resume so that she can dance once more. 

In her bedroom, he sits with her and watches the window so that she can feel safe once again. When she bolts up in the early hours of the morning, nightshift soaked with sweat and tears down her face, he holds her hand and reassures her that it will not happen again. 

-

She is 16. 

Her advisors are pressuring her to find someone to wed. She seeks him out in the library, where he usually is, learning and absorbing all he can. She’s radiant in emerald, though her hair is in a different way than it was when he last saw her. It’s pulled up into three buns, messier than what is proper, and he knows immediately she did them herself. She’s not the most ladylike of queens, and never has been. 

“What am I to tell them?” she asks, sitting across from him in the small window seat. He has to move his legs so that she can sit with her heavy skirts, and he watches as she looks out the window. 

She’s told him before that she wishes she didn’t have to stay, that she wishes she could come and go as she wishes. That she could see the world, that she could explore. 

“Tell them you wish to visit your suitors’ kingdoms,” Ben offers, closing his book out of respect for her. “It is an excuse to see the world, and gives you time.”

She looks at him like he just gave her the world, before she smiles and darts off. 

-

He never considered that she would leave without him. He never considered that she would appoint him an advisor, would put his mother as acting queen while she was gone. He and his mother watch her ship sail off into the sunrise, and though he says he is excited for her, his mother knows otherwise.

-

_I’ve never seen so much green in my life._

Their gardens are tended to often, so that the plants do not perish in the heat of the desert climate. But the green of the bushes and little trees pales in comparison to the plants of the North, she explains in her letter. 

He wishes he could see it with her.

-

She is 19. She comes off the ship sun-tanned, with more freckles sprinkled across her cheeks than he’s ever seen on her skin. She’s also dressed in the sailor’s garb, shirt yellowed with sweat and pants stiff with salt water. 

Her smile is brighter than he’s ever seen it as she rushes off the ship and into his arms. 

-

“Have you made a decision?”

The sun shines through the archways, the columns in between casting dark shadows across the walkway. She’s adopted the styles of the West kingdoms, with looser dresses, gauzy fabrics, deep cocoa browns and caramel tans and delicate creams. She looks more radiant than he’s ever seen her. He notices that her freckles extend to her breasts, as well, the neckline lower than he’s ever seen, but still modest enough to suit the prudish advisors. 

“I have,” his queen says. “I made a decision a long time ago.”

“A long time ago?” he asks, raising a brow as he looks down at her. Her gaze is lowered to the tiled walkway, brightly colored glass arranged in mosaics of the kingdom’s history. He tries to think of the first suitor she met. It wasn’t a long time ago, no … perhaps not a prince, but someone the advisors deemed worthy for his accomplishments? “Dameron, then?”

Her head snaps up and she looks at him like he just suggested she marry a gecko. “What? No!” Her face softens. “You’re an idiot, you know that?”

“I may be an idiot, but I’m your idiot,” he responds immediately, before he frowns, confused. Why did she just … ? “Pray tell, why am I an idiot?”

The callouses from helping with the sails have not yet been polished away, and he feels them along with the warmth of her skin as her hand slips to the back of his neck. “Because I’ve liked you since I was young, and loved you for almost as long.”

“Ah.” He has no idea how to process that information. Apparently his body does, though, because he feels his cheeks and the tips of his ears flush. 

He will not be king, no. He doesn’t want to be king. But he will very gladly be her consort, and watch her as she rules with warm smiles and an even warmer heart. 

Her people love her, and he can see why.   
  
He loves her, too.


	8. sugar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize in advance for any OOC lines, traits, or interactions - since these are short prompts and more for entertainment and fun than serious reading, I hold them to a lower standard than the fics I put hours of writing and editing time into.

_**99.** “I don’t care what they said, it doesn’t mean shit!”  
**85.** “It’s not what it looks like.”_

Posted July 7th 2018

* * *

 

She needed the money. That’s all there was to it. She needed the money, and he was willing to pay, in exchange for her having dinner with him once a week. An incredibly innocent request, considering the others she’d gotten. (Feet and ass were entirely off limits, no exceptions.)

Kylo Ren is a businessman. Rey’s not entirely sure what he does, because he doesn’t like to talk about work when he comes home. All he knows is that he’s a businessman, and he has money, because every time she walks into his penthouse she’s surrounded by wealth, and every week she gets a hefty deposit into her checking account. 

Finn, Poe, and Rose are overjoyed that she can return to college for another year, but they don’t understand when she tries to explain. “It’s not what it looks like,” she tries, over French toast and bacon and hashbrowns. “We don’t fuck, he’s just lonely. He wants company.”

She can tell they don’t believe her. 

-

The penthouse smells like truffle oil, and melting cheese. She sets her backpack and purse by the door, as she always does, seeing his keys in the leather organizer. The sound of a whisk against a metal bowl echoes along the art-lined walls, and Rey walks through the main corridor before coming out into the large, open living space. 

The kitchen is huge, all blacks and grays and gunmetals, with two ovens and a gourmet fridge. Kylo Ren likes to cook, but has no one to cook for, he’d explained, their first night. “I don’t have many work friends,” he’d told her, cutting into his herb-crusted lamb chop. “And I don’t have time to make new ones.”

All he wants, really, is a friend. A friend to cook for.

“It smells wonderful,” she tells him, his back turned to her as he whisks what looks to be fresh whipped cream. For dessert, no doubt. He’s changed from his suit and tie - sometimes he does, sometimes he just sheds his suit jacket and tie, and cooks with his white dress shirt, his sleeves rolled up and the top few buttons undone. She loves it when he does that. 

Now, he’s just in black sweatpants and a grey t-shirt, looking over his shoulder at her as he continues to whisk. “Thank you.” 

Always so quiet, so shy, so soft-spoken.

He sets the bowl of whipped cream down, turning and offering the whisk to her. She gladly takes it, licking the cream off of the wire as he puts the bowl in the fridge for later. 

“Truffle lobster and shrimp fettuccine with parmesan crisps and a salad on the side, and flourless chocolate cake with whipped vanilla cream and raspberry reduction,” Mr. Ren explains, turning to the island where a wooden bowl of what looks to be arugula and spinach is waiting. Rey can see cut strawberries, candied walnuts, and blue cheese in little metal prep bowls, and sets the whisk in the sink before following him over. 

She reaches up to scratch his back, gently dragging her nails across his shoulder blades. She discovered he likes the simple affection about a month ago, whether it’s a scratch or a simple rub or a gentle massage - he likes having his back touched. No doubt it’s because of doing whatever he’s doing all day, sitting in some chair in a corner office. 

Mr. Ren melts a little beneath her touch, before turning to look down at her. He stares at her for a moment, his gaze slipping to her lips, and Rey smiles and nods. 

“You may.”

He isn’t paying her for sex. He told her that right up front, their first night. He’s paying her for her company. And still he’s insistent on checking with her, making sure that he can kiss her before he does, and still it’s so sweet, so hesitant, so _innocent._

One of these days she’ll tell him that she likes him, that she likes dinner with him, wants to do it more than once a week. That she likes being with him. 

And one of these days, she’ll tell him she wants him to fuck her on the counter.

-

Poe means well, he really does. She has to remind herself of that when he, after a year of seeing Mr. Ren, tells her yet again that her having dinner with him isn’t a good idea. 

“There are other ways to get money besides selling your body, Rey.”

That one, though - that one gets her. 

The card table shakes as she slams her fists down on it, leaning forward and getting into Poe’s face. “If I wanted to sell my body, I would sell my fucking body,” she growls. “But I’m selling my time, and how the fuck is that any different from getting a job somewhere and being paid? The difference is I’m not flipping burgers, I’m spending one night a week with a man who has no friends, who loves to cook, and who just wants someone to talk to him and eat chocolate cake with him! Why the _fuck_ is that so hard to understand?! What difference does it make if we fuck? It’s my decision, Poe, and I’m deciding to spend the night with the man I love instead of sitting here and being judged!”

Her rage clouds the words she says as she grabs her bag and storms out. She doesn’t even remember what she said until she’s on the subway on the way to the penthouse, tears in her eyes. 

_Spend the night with the man I love._

-

Mr. Ren opens the door with mussed hair and sleepy-looking eyes. She doesn’t give a shit. She launches herself at him, slotting her lips against his. He tastes stale. He must have been sleeping. It is, after all, almost 1am. 

His arms wrap around her, holding her up as her bag slips from her shoulder. She wraps her arms around her neck, clinging to him. She wonders if he can taste the tears she’s still shedding. 

She tells him what Poe said, afterwards, curled up against his chest as they lie on the couch and look out across the sparkling city lights. 

“Maybe he has a point-”

He grunts as she sits up, her head narrowly missing the underside of his chin. “What?”

He looks sad, so damn sad, as he says, “It’s not normal, what we’re doing.”

“I don’t fucking care if it’s normal! I don’t care what they said, it doesn’t mean shit!” She moves to straddle him, her hands finding those marble-hard shoulders and grasping firmly. “I don’t care what they think. I love you, and I want to spend time with you. I want to spend more than one night a week with you, I want to spend every night a week with you. I want to spend the night. And fuck it all, I want you to take me against one of the windows or on the counter or something because I’ve been wanting you to _fuck me_ for the past eight months!”

He kisses her harder and with more animosity than he ever has, and she thinks she should have said something several months ago, because _damn._

-

When Poe, Finn, and Rose finally meet him, they don’t meet him as Mr. Ren, the man Rey’s been having dinner with once a week because he’s lonely. They meet him as Kylo Ren, her new (stupidly rich, stupidly handsome, stupidly sweet) boyfriend. 


	9. magical move-in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize in advance for any OOC lines, traits, or interactions - since these are short prompts and more for entertainment and fun than serious reading, I hold them to a lower standard than the fics I put hours of writing and editing time into.

_**55.** “I fell in love with my best friend.”  
**92.** “Let’s move in together.”_

Posted July 6th 2018

* * *

 

She’s a scrappy little thing, that’s for sure. 

Her robe no doubt came from some second-hand store, too big for her frame and patched in a few places with black cloth that’s just a little too blue, or a little too brown, or a little too grey. There are those whose families are friends, those who know each other, who hold each other’s hands and whisper about being in the same house. She is not whispering. She has no one’s hand to hold. 

She looks absolutely terrified. 

“Slytherin!” 

He can see the tears in her eyes and her lip wobble from his table at Hufflepuff, but she braves it and goes to sit at her table. There is no one to hug her, to comfort her, to reassure her. The boy next to her looks at her robes, sees the patches, and scoots a good few centimeters away from her. 

His heart aches for her. 

-

He’s not entirely sure how she got in. Hogsmeade is for the third years, those who have permission slips. But she’s wandering about as a second year, in a holey jumper, leggings thin in some places. 

“How did you get here?”

He doesn’t mean for it to come off as rude as it does. She startles, before she narrows her amber eyes at him, looking back to the window of Honeydukes.

“I’m not telling you,” she says simply. 

All right, Slytherin it is.

“You should be wearing more than a jumper.”

“I don’t have a coat,” she says. With that tone, she could have very well said that the sky is blue, or that it’s cold out. It’s a fact, that’s all it is. 

“You’re going to get sick,” Ben insists, frowning. 

“I don’t have a coat, and I don’t have the money to buy one, what else am I supposed to do?” the little second year demands, spinning and glaring at him with her arms wrapped around herself. “Excuse me.”

She pushes by him, and he watches her shiver in the early December air. 

-

He’s watched her over the two years, watched her across the hall. Other kids receive packages, and letters from home, the occasional entertaining Howler or two. But she’s never gotten anything. He’s grateful he remembers her name from the Sorting Hat, otherwise he’d have no idea how to find it out. 

Rey Jackson’s eyes widen as a tawny owl lands at her place, bearing a package wrapped in brown paper. She shakes her head at the owl at first, and Ben reads her lips. _Not me_ , she says, before she takes the package to read the name. And then she stops, before she gingerly unties the package from the owl, who then promptly flies out the window. 

It’s not the most expensive coat, no. He couldn’t afford anything with any fur, and besides, he doesn’t know her stance on it, anyway. But he could afford a beautiful dark brown wool, with a cream lining, and he watches as she stares at the coat in awe, her fingers stroking the fabric. 

He’ll have to find his Gryffindor Head of House mother, and thank her for his generous allowance.

-

“You didn’t need to buy me a coat.”

She’s in third year, now, he’s in fifth. Her hands are stuffed inside of the coat. He’s glad he had the sense to buy too big, because it fits her well, now. 

“Finally obeying the rules?” Ben asks, raising a brow at her. 

“No,” she says simply. “My foster father won’t sign the permission form. He’s usually to drunk to write anything, or he’s out at his shop. I doubt he’d sign it anyway.”

He wants to ask how she got there, how she keeps managing to sneak in despite the lack of a permission form, but he doesn’t. Instead, he asks her if she wants some tea, and she agrees. 

And that’s how Rey Jackson attaches herself to Ben Organa Solo.

-

She comes home with him for the summer. She stares in awe at Organa Manor, with its cream brick walls and sprawling gardens. Later, he’ll find her watering the flowers, despite his mother’s insistence that they have magic to do that for them. 

“But isn’t it nicer knowing you grew it yourself? Without your wand?” Rey insists, covered with dirt and sprinkled with sweet-smelling hose water from a hose Ben didn’t even know existed. 

His mother grows a little rosebush in a pot just for her, miniature in size and in blossoms, but every day Rey comes down with a tiny rose tucked into her hair, and Ben can’t help but grin. 

His father teases him as she turns 14, July bright and warm like she is. “Not as much of an age difference as your mother and I,” Han tells him, but he can’t see her that way, not now. 

She gets new robes that don’t end at her shins, and new sweaters, new shirts and new books, new quills and new ink. He can tell she puts up a good front, smiling and thanking his mother politely, but when he comes to check on her that night, he sees her in her ratty pajamas, standing in front of the mirror in her new robes with tears in her eyes. 

By September, Rey is more Organa Solo than she is Jackson, and so McGonagall, after hearing of Rey’s foster father and his unavailability, bends just a little and allows his mother’s signature on the permission slip.

-

“Do you think I’m pretty?”

The question comes out of fucking nowhere as they’re sitting beside each other by the lake, a large tree offering shade. Ben looks up from his potions homework, his best subject, and looks over at Rey, who’s picking at a loose thread on her robe. 

“Yes,” Ben says simply. “Why?”

Rey says nothing for a moment, and he can see her cheeks are pinking, almost red enough to disguise her freckles. “Because I’m thinking of asking Cian Donoghue to Hogsmeade. Do you think he’d say yes?”

He knows of Cian. The Seeker for the Gryffindor team. Rey’s the Seeker for Slytherin, winning every game so far thanks to the Firebolt his mother surprised her with for her birthday. It would be a forbidden match made in heaven. Despite their rivalry, Cian is a good kid, one year older than Rey and one year younger than Ben, with auburn hair and slightly crooked teeth. Ben doesn’t know much more aside from he’s apparently nice.

“He would, yeah, I think,” Ben replies. 

Han was right. He didn’t realize how much he liked Rey until he sees her walking through Hogsmeade on Cian’s arm, both of them laughing as he hiccups feathers from the after-effects of a Canary Cream.

-

They’re sweet together, they really are. The whole school is atwitter with the news that the Seekers of rival teams are dating. Valentine’s Day comes and goes with flowers and chocolates and a pretty public declaration of adoration, before it fizzles out right before summer. 

“His dreams weren’t in line with mine,” she says as they sit on the train back to King’s Cross. “He wants to play for a team. I want to settle down somewhere. If I wanted to see him, I would have to follow him.”

Ben wants to tell her she’s too young to know what her dreams are yet, but how can he say that to here when he has dreams, too? Even worse, they involve being close to her.

-

As a Hufflepuff, he never expected to be good at potions, but he likes it. He likes it a lot. He likes it enough to rent space in Diagon Alley, and while he does stock other potions, for the most part he makes his own. His apartment above the shop is homey, but it isn’t the manor he grew up in. Still, he enjoys his job, likes his shop, likes greeting the Muggle parents and Muggle-born kids who come in on their first school supplies trip. (The nervousness of some of the parents prompts him to always keep nerve potions in stock, as well as little under-bed potion kits for every sort of sickness their child could get, approved by Madame Pomfrey herself.)

“Ben!”

She’s a 7th year, now, 18 years old and more beautiful than ever. She runs into his arms and he refrains from swinging her around as he usually does, because swinging her around in a shop full of glass bottles, some with a price tag of several dozen Galleons, is probably not the best idea. 

He can see his mother and father over her shoulder, buying her final books, her final parchment rolls, her final bottles of ink. 

It’s a heavy reminder that _this is it, this is the last._

-

“Let’s move in together.”

The shop in Diagon Alley’s going well, but he’s considering moving somewhere to the countryside where he can grow his own ingredients. That must be why she brings it up, Ben thinks, as he looks up from cooking dinner and looks to where Rey’s sitting on the counter. 

“I thought you wanted to play for a team?” he asks. 

“No. I said I wanted to settle down somewhere, with someone,” she replies. 

He’s damned glad that the magic is doing most of the work, otherwise he would have cut himself. “What?”

“You’re really that dense, aren’t you?”

She tastes like the strawberries she’s been snacking on while he made the strawberry tarts. She guides him to step between her knees, her hands on his shoulder and in his hair as she tells him, “You’re my best friend, have been for years. I broke up with Cian after I realized I loved you. I fell in love my best friend.”

Most wizards and witches from Hogwards have dreams of Quidditch, of being Aurors, of having important and well-paying jobs in the government. His dream was to own a potion shop. Her dream was to settle down with someone, and to own a garden. 

He never thought her dream included him.


	10. gothic literature.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize in advance for any OOC lines, traits, or interactions - since these are short prompts and more for entertainment and fun than serious reading, I hold them to a lower standard than the fics I put hours of writing and editing time into.

_**78.** “You weren’t supposed to hear that.”_

Posted July 5th 2018

* * *

 

She remembers hearing about Professor Solo on the campus tour. Some brave soul asked their guide whose classes to avoid, much to the embarrassment of his parents who quickly tried to shush him. Their guide answered anyway, though, saying, “If you can, avoid Professor Solo at all costs.”

She didn’t give a reason. She didn’t even say which classes he taught. Which is how Rey Jackson finds herself sitting in the vast lecture hall, staring in horror at the syllabus that had been placed on the little desk.

How could she has missed it? How could she have completely overread the instructor’s name? She was too wooed by the idea of taking an entire semester of Gothic literature, it seems, and now she has to pay the price.

“Good morning.”

She didn’t even notice him come in. She stupidly chose to sit near the front - a rookie mistake, if the fact that there’s no one around her is any indication. But it means she can see him so much better.

She can’t decide whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

Rey’d been expecting some old, crotchety man, the sort of age when both sides of the bed are the wrong side. Someone who looked as bad as everyone said he was.

Professor Solo doesn’t look old, or crotchety, or anything of that sort.

“In case anyone’s in the wrong place, this is Gothic Literature, code LA178. My name’s Professor Solo.”

She wonders how he managed to find a suit jacket to fit those broad shoulders. If the way it hugs is figure is any indication, it’s probably custom made, or tailored, or something. Dark hair falls in his face, and he brushes it back, revealing slim glasses. Well, that’s a discovery she didn’t expect to make today. Guys with glasses - good. Very, very good.

The doors to the lecture hall open and close as he writes his name on the board in broad, scrawling cursive. Looking over her shoulder, Rey can see that there are maybe 20 people left. They lost 5, or so, maybe more.

As close as she is to the front, she can see the slight, very slight slump of Professor Solo’s shoulders before he coughs.

“Let’s get started.”

-

“He isn’t that bad, honestly.”

“Are you shitting me?” Poe demands, plucking an onion ring from Rey’s plate before she can smack his hand away. “He’s like the devil, he doesn’t accept late work, his quizzes are insane, his tests are impossible, and he never offers extra credit.”

“If you come to class and pay attention, he’s not bad,” Rey insists, stealing a fry from his plate in retaliation. Finn follows her lead, which has Poe looking down at his boyfriend’s plate for something to steal.

“How dare you get a salad,” Poe mutters, but he snags a cucumber anyway, crunching loudly. “That’s just it, though. When finals come around, it’s impossible to pass, and then you’re screwed over. It starts off fine, now, but then later? It’s hell.”

“I can handle it,” Rey promises. “It’ll be fine.”

-

It wasn’t fine.

It’s not even finals, yet, it’s just mid-terms, and she’s slammed. Big time. Between her projects that require her to be in the metalworking studio, and the rest of her courses, her brain is fried. Which is why she’s standing outside of Professor Solo’s office, clutching the study guide with nervous hands and waiting for him to finish the phone call inside.

That he even gave them a study guide is generous, considering she has two classes that don’t have one, but she can’t make sense of it. Or, rather, she can’t figure out what’s going to be on the actual mid-term. And there’s a damn good chance that he’s not going to tell her anything, but her grade is worth the try.

The muttering inside of the office dies down, and she waits a few more heartbeats before knocking on the door. There’s silence, and then a confused-sounding, “Come in?”

It’s a small office. Warm, cozy, with rich browns. Not like a Harvard office, no, not that old-looking, but the same classic look. Professor Solo is staring at her from behind his glasses, his dark brows raised in surprise. “Miss Jackson?”

“I was wondering if you could go over the study guide with me.” Great, Rey, don’t even say hello, just blurt out what she wants from him. “Please.”

He stares at her like she’s grown a third head. Up close, like this, she can see the dark moles scattering his face, the little imperfections on that porcelain skin, how his lips are fuller than she thought. The sudden heat through her veins doesn’t overpower the dread in her stomach, though, as she stares at him, feeling the paper crinkle in her grip.

There’s another heartbeat of silence before he nods, closing his laptop and sliding it to the side before he gestures to the single butter-toffee-colored leather chair in front of the desk.

Of course the chair squeaks when she sits down. Of course her thighs stick to the leather when she gets up to adjust, and of course it squeaks again. She’s cringing internally as he opens his hand for the study guide, her attention on the wrinkles that her nervous hands made as he grabs a highlighter from a cup on his desk and starts to mark up the paper.

“You need to know all of the vocabulary we’ve learned. It’s fill in the blank. There’s going to be a word bank.” He looks up at her from beneath his lashes, behind his glasses. “I’m not as much of an asshole as everyone says I am.”

If she really thought about it, she would have made some sort of light giggle or something. Instead, it comes out as some weird “Ha!” sound mixed with a snort, and she feels her cheeks flush terribly. Solo doesn’t look up, though, and continues highlighting.

“Know the primary authors. Those we mentioned briefly won’t be on, but if you read any of it, or if I’ve done a lecture on them, then they’ll be on there. Know their works, too.”

“Okay.” Her voice comes out stronger than she expected it to. Solo says nothing. For a moment, she can just hear the squeak of the highlighter as it moves across the page.

“You’ll be asked plot points of the books we’ve read. Major events, characters, et cetera. As well as the meaning behind symbols, titles, quotations, et cetera.”

She can do that. She took notes. She read the books. “All right.”

“You read,” Solo says firmly, closing the highlighter and setting it back into the cup. “You’ll do fine.”

She wants to demand how he knows, how he knows she read, but she just nods as he hands the study guide back to her.

“You’re the first person who’s ever come to me who hasn’t begged for extra credit, or to postpone the exam.”

She’s halfway out of her chair, her hand braced on the arm of it as she looks back towards him. He’s looking at her now. “Am I?”

“You like Gothic literature?”

“I do.” It’s immediate. “I saw this class and knew I wanted to take it. I had to talk to my academic advisor to rearrange some things so that I could, but here I am.”

His broad shoulders slump a little like they did the first day, but there’s no disappointment in his eyes. Instead, there’s the curve of the slightest smile.

“If you have any more questions, feel free to email or text me. I’m usually up late,” Solo says, bowing his head and reaching for a file. “It’s on the syllabus. My … my number. And email.”

“Right. Thank you for taking the time to speak with me.” Great, that sounds like some formulated response. “I’m really enjoying your class.”

That gets his attention. His head snaps up, revealing wide eyes beneath dark hair. “Really?”

Well, shit? Isn’t that just heartbreaking? “Yeah,” Rey offers, smiling. “I had to take a year break to save up some money, and while working I didn’t get the chance to read. I missed it. I’m getting to reread some of my favorites, and discover new ones. So … thanks.”

She hopes that the study guide in her hand won’t become wet pulp in the next few minutes. She’s sure her hands are sweating, maybe making the highlighter ink bleed. She wouldn’t be surprised if she looked down and had tie-dye hands.

Professor Solo stares at her for another moment before saying, “No, thank you,” in the softest voice she’s ever heard.

He has to get back to grading essays, he tells her, and she leaves, closing the office door behind her and trying to keep her smile from splitting her cheeks.

-

She does well. She does well on the mid-term, and the final, too, thanks to meetings with Professor Solo. She stays for longer than she should talking about Ann Radcliffe, and Charlotte Bronte, and Mary Shelley, not noticing the sun’s set until Professor Solo mentions something about traffic and missing rush hour.

His office door is open on the last day of classes. She goes to knock on the door frame, but sees his back to her, covered in one of those navy blazers she likes on him, his phone to his ear.

“She’s the only one who actually pays attention, Dad. I haven’t had anyone try in years.”

Silence.

“Why would you - yeah, she’s cute, but she’s a student, Dad.” More silence. “I don’t know. It’s not going to happen either way, okay? She said she held off on a year, but that would still make her 20 or 21 or something. Yeah, I know you and Mom have a similar age difference, but-”

Rey watches as Professor Solo sighs, reaching up to run a hand through his hair. “I mean, we’ve talked,” he says. “But not about anything aside from Gothic lit, I don’t know, Dad, I just…”

She should go. She really should, she’s not supposed to be hearing this-

Professor Solo turns around, his hand still in his hair when he sees her. He’s not wearing glasses today, she realizes, as his eyes widen. “Dad, I have to go.” It’s said quickly, and quietly, and she watches as the hand holding his phone lowers. “You weren’t supposed to hear that.”

“I’m sorry.” She has no idea what else to say.

“No, I am. I told Dad I finally had a student who gave a shit, and he asked if you were cute,” Professor Solo explains. His pale cheeks are turning red, and Rey watches as he lifts his hand to cover them, and his eyes. “Shit, this is like … seven levels of inappropriate, I’m so fucking sorry, I-”

“I’m not taking any of your classes next semester.”

His hand moves away. “What?”

“If you’re not my advisor, and I’m not in any of your classes, then it’s allowed,” Rey offers quickly. What the fuck is she doing?! It’s too late now, though. “I … I looked it up.”

Professor Solo continues to stare at her, cheeks still that adorable shade of pink when he coughs. It’s awkward, so awkward, and she can feel her palms sweating as she waits for him to just say something.

“… I have to finish updating the grades, but if you don’t have anything going on, maybe we could-”

“Yes.” Shit. She didn’t mean to interrupt him, or agree that quickly. “Sorry, go ahead?”

She’s never seen him smirk before. He usually just offers her soft, small smiles, which are cute in their own right, but to see those plush lips in a smirk - fuck her, really.

Putting the grades takes longer than he thought it would, and she keeps herself busy with the books on his bookshelf, sitting sideways on the chair across from him, devouring The Haunting of Hill House as he works. Pizza in the warm low light of his office might not have been the romantic date either of them had planned, but Rey can’t imagine their first date being any more them.


	11. surprise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize in advance for any OOC lines, traits, or interactions - since these are short prompts and more for entertainment and fun than serious reading, I hold them to a lower standard than the fics I put hours of writing and editing time into.

_**7.** “You did what?!”  
_ _**8.** “Were you ever going to tell me?”_

Posted on July 4th 2018

* * *

 

“You did what?!”

“He’s so cute, Ben, wait until you see him to make any decisions, all right?”

He can’t deal with this right now. He can’t. Ben groans, letting his head fall into his hand. “Rey, we can’t have a puppy.”

“Just wait until you see him, please?”

He can see her face. He can just see her face, her big brown eyes and those plush, pink lips formed into a perfect pout. She rarely pouts. She was the exact opposite of a spoiled child, and rarely asks for anything, wanting to get it on her own. Case in point with the puppy she’s apparently bringing home.

She’ll have to beg to keep him, though. He can promise that.

“Rey, even though I’m home, I don’t have time to train a puppy,” he grumbles, before realizing that the line’s silent. “ … hello?”

Within half a heartbeat, his phone is buzzing, and he frowns, pulling it from his ear to see that Rey’s sent a text. 

It’s a picture. A picture of some kind of black puppy, a lab by the looks of it, with big, dark puppy eyes and … well, shit.

_Isn’t he cute?_

Ben will give her that. The pup is cute. But they can’t have a puppy. They just can’t.

-

“His name is Kylo.”

The pup is licking at his wife’s face, and his heart melts at both the image and the giggles that come from her lips. He really is a sweet thing, Ben thinks, reaching to take him in his arms. Immediately Kylo starts to lick his jaw, cheeks, and lips, and Ben has to smile a little at that. How could he not?

“You’re smiling. We can keep him.”

“I didn’t say that,” Ben says, trying not to get licked directly in the mouth, tilting his head back and receiving sloppy kisses under his chin instead. “Rey, I’m more than sure that some of the flowers you use aren’t good for puppies.”

“He won’t be going into the shed, will you, sweetheart?” Rey croons, reaching forward to scratch Kylo behind his ears. He scrambles for her, and Ben lets him go, setting him on the ground before he’s running to Rey again. His wife coos and sits cross-legged on the ground, rubbing the dog’s sides before scratching a spot just above his wagging tail.

“Were you ever going to tell me?” Ben asks, crossing his arms over his chest and raising a brow at Rey. 

She looks at him sheepishly, reaching for Kylo and scooping him up into her lap, letting him mouth at her fingers. “They had a few outside of the grocery store-”

“You didn’t plan this?”

“He was whining, Ben,” she insists, looking down at Kylo and kissing the top of his head. “He needed a good home, and I didn’t want to leave him when I knew we could give him one…”

He can’t tell whether it’s a guilt trip or not. He knows her past, of course he does, he knows she was left by her parents at a park. He knows exactly why she couldn’t abandon the sweet puppy - she saw herself in the animal. He guesses he’s lucky she didn’t come home with all of them.

“ … did you even buy food, or toys, or puppy pads, or a leash?”

Kylo’s claws clicking on the tile floor fill the silence. Ben sighs, moving to get his shoes on. 

“Come on, let’s go.”

-

“No, Kylo, that is not food!” 

Ben grabs the little puppy around the middle, pulling him back from the cords that they really need to tie up and spray with that anti-chew spray. “You are such an asshole,” he grumbles, scratching the pup behind his ears and reaching for one of the squeaky toys instead. He squeaks it once to get the dog’s attention, grinning as Kylo perks up immediately. And then he tosses it, watching as it hits the wall.

Kylo bolts out of his arms, scratching Ben’s wrist in the process with nails in need of a trim, and Ben laughs as he goes sliding across the floor. But then the pup doesn’t stop and- 

“Oh, no, Kylo, stop!” Ben tries, attempting to scramble to his feet, but he’s too late.

**_Bonk!_ **

The collision with the wall doesn’t phase the pup in the slightest, it seems, as he goes right for the chew toy, squeaks filling the air along with Ben’s laughter. Oh, fuck, his ribs hurt … he should feel bad, he knows, but damn, that was funny.

“What’re my boys up to?”

Rey smells like flowers, as always, and Ben’s grateful for the change after smelling dog for the past few hours. Relatively clean dog, sure, but still dog. He stands and buries his nose in her hair, watching their newest family member out of the corner of his eye, Kylo trying very, very hard to get to the squeaker inside of the squirrel toy.

“Just having fun,” Ben mutters, smiling against his wife’s brunette locks as Kylo’s tail wags and thwaps against the wall. 

“So we’re keeping him?” 

He looks down at Rey, seeing her bright eyes, eager and sweet. How could he deny her? 

“Yeah. He’s a little asshole, but we’re keeping him.”

**_Crash!_ **

“Shit, Kylo, no!”


	12. library.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize in advance for any OOC lines, traits, or interactions - since these are short prompts and more for entertainment and fun than serious reading, I hold them to a lower standard than the fics I put hours of writing and editing time into.

“Can I sit here? The other tables are full.”  
“I a don’t know why I’m crying.”

Posted July 3rd 2018

* * *

 

It has been the definition of a bad day. 

She lives off campus, a good two miles. It was cheaper, and this way she doesn’t have to share her apartment with anyone. She wouldn’t ask for anyone to share, anyway, not after the shower knob came off in her hand this morning. Thankfully it didn’t spurt water like she’s seen online, but it means she has to make her now three day hair last for four days. Dry shampoo and three buns it is. 

And then someone stole the wheels off of her bike. Didn’t try to cut the pretty old, relatively weak chain that is keeping her bike to the rack, no, they took the wheels. 

It wasn’t the best bike, no. The seat’s fraying and she can see the foam that’s beneath the plastic. The handlebars are worn down. It’s not exactly the right height for a comfortable ride but the latch to adjust the seat height is rusted and can’t be undone, and so she’s just dealt with it. Until today, that is. 

Rey thanked every deity she can think of that her manager at the campus coffee shop was understanding. And then she cursed the universe when she spilled hot coffee on her chest, dabbing at her bare breasts with a cool cloth in the back room and hoping that it won’t hurt that badly in the hours to come. 

It’s just one of those days, she decides, when there’s a pop quiz in one of her classes. It’s just one of those days, she reassures herself when they’re out of her favorite slushy at the campus convenience store. It’s just one of those days, she repeats like a mantra when Poe and Finn tell her that they’re going on a date and they’re so sorry for canceling, but they’ll pick up the bill next time, yeah?

It’s just one of those days.

The library, at least, is warm and comforting. Maybe she can sleep here. It’s open all day and all night, after all, Rey thinks as she sits at one of the tables, trying to ignore the laughter of a particularly non-productive study group. 

She should be doing homework, she really should. But Helen’s just being gently tugged into a barn by the stableboy her father hired, the stableboy with the charming smile and large ears and gentle hands and-

“Excuse me?”

“Fuck!”

It probably wasn’t the best idea to be leaning back a bit in the chair, anyway, she knows that. It could have prevented her from falling backwards and landing on her back on the hardwood floor of the library, a whimper falling from her lips as she closes her eyes and wishes, for just a moment, that she were dead. 

“Shit, sorry! Here, let me help you?”

A hand on hers, and then another on her arm, guiding her to sit up. Her head hurts like a bitch after knocking it on the floor, and Rey whimpers again, reaching back to cup the sore spot. 

“I’m sorry,” the boy says, his voice soft and deep, and Rey sighs, tears smarting in her eyes. She can’t look at him, she can’t…

“It’s okay,” she confesses as she detangles herself from the chair, standing and stepping out of his hold to right it again. “I shouldn’t have been leaning back on it.”

“Still, I’m sorry I scared you.” A pause as she moves to sit back in the chair, still refusing to look at him. “Can I sit here? The other tables are full.”

“Sure, go ahead.” She doesn’t mean to sound like a grumpy old curmudgeon, but she does anyway. She sighs. “Sorry, it’s just been one of those days, you know?”

“I know.”

Rey finally - finally - looks up, and stops, her eyes widening as she sees the boy - no, man, this is a grown man - in front of her. 

Of course he’s cute. He just had to be cute. She just had to lean back in her chair, look like a fucking idiot, and snap at a ridiculously cute man with soft-looking dark hair that are just barely hiding big ears, constellations of freckles across his cheeks, and shoulders that would rival those of the Greek gods. 

And here come the tears. 

Cute-whoever-he-is looks up at the first sniffle. “… are you okay?”

“I don’t know why I’m crying,” Rey tries, turning to rummage through her bag for something that could pass as a tissue. “I know that so many other people have it worse, I swear, it’s just been-”

“One of those days.”

“Yeah.” She hates how weak and quiet her voice sounds as she finally reaches a pack of tissues from when she was dealing with allergies a few weeks ago. She pulls one out and wipes her eyes before blowing her nose. Sexy, she thinks glumly, slipping the dirty tissue back into her bag to throw away later. “Sorry, you probably want to study and here I am crying. Just ignore me, okay?”

He says nothing. She didn’t expect him to. She just looks back down at her book, sighing as she tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear. She can’t get into it, not anymore, so she finds herself rereading a few paragraphs she already read before she decides to give up entirely. 

Rey opens her mouth to say she’s sorry, she has to go, something something early class something, but then she sees the hint of silver out of the corner of her eye, and stops. 

“I have more, if you need more,” the man says, looking pointedly at the little silver-wrapped Hershey’s kiss. 

A soft, sexy voice, and he’s giving her chocolate. And he’s cute. And he looks a little nervous, too.

“Thanks.” She can’t remember the last time she had chocolate that wasn’t in a free cookie on campus somewhere. She can’t splurge on sweets, she doesn’t have that kind of money. She remembers smoothing the foil when she was younger, saving it and then using it to make little sculptures or to cover her notebook while every other kid bought the already pretty notebooks. It’s been so long… “What’s your name, again?”

“Ben,” the man says. She realizes she never asked for his name, and he never said it, but he doesn’t correct her, instead sliding another Hershey’s kiss across the table as she bites into the other one. 

Yeah. Yeah, she needed this. 

“I’m Rey.”


	13. boss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize in advance for any OOC lines, traits, or interactions - since these are short prompts and more for entertainment and fun than serious reading, I hold them to a lower standard than the fics I put hours of writing and editing time into.

_**53.** “I’m flirting with you.”_

Posted July 2nd 2018

* * *

 

Kylo Ren is, in a word, unattainable. 

He’s also a bit of an aloof asshole, but she can deal with that, for one night, if it means getting rid of those dreams she’s constantly having. 

The main problem is that Kylo Ren, her boss times perhaps twenty, is completely and utterly unreachable, untouchable, and unfuckable. 

“You’ve really got it, haven’t you?”

Rey groans around her bite of panini, glaring at Poe. “Don’t want to talk about it,” she tells him as they wait for Finn to return from the almost miles long salad bar line. 

Poe just smirks and leans forward, resting his chin in his hand. “He walks like he’s packing…”

“Hadn’t noticed.” Wrong. She’s noticed. She’s noticed a _lot._

“And he’s broad as hell… I bet he’d cover you entirely, bracing himself above you as he-”

“Enough, Poe. The dreams are bad enough already.” And great, now she can only focus on the thought of the small mole she saw on his neck the day he had his shirt unbuttoned by one more button than usual. Damn her. Damn Kylo Ren.

She bites viciously into her sandwich, glaring at her coworker. “Say one more thing about him, and I am leaving the table.”

“Say one more thing about whom?”

“Our boss’s boss’s boss’s boss,” Poe explains, looking up at his boyfriend as Finn settles in with his salad. He immediately spears a tomato and steals it, slipping it between his lips. “Kylo,” he says, trying to talk around the fruit and failing miserably. 

“Sorry?” Finn asks, blinking in confusion.

“Can we just change the subject, please?”

“From his hot, hard body braced over yours? Sure. How about how his ass is always hugged to perfection in those tailored suits?” Poe suggests after chewing and swallowing. 

“Ah, Kylo.” Finn makes the connection as he grabs his fork. “I’m starting to think you need a therapist, Rey.”

“I don’t need a therapist. I need … I need to find someone else to think of,” she confesses, threading a hand into her hair and sighing as she leans on her hand. “It’s just like those sex dreams of someone hot on the subway or something, just your brain connecting a need to a random face. They’ll go away, I’m sure.” 

-

She said that three months ago, now. 

It’s not like she doesn’t have anyone else to imagine. There are a few guys who greet her every day who are cute. There’s Steve, with the nice smile and the soft-looking hair, always in a shade of blue to bring out his eyes. There’s Ethan, with the scruff always groomed nicely and the warm grin as he sees her on the way to the break room, right by her receptionist’s desk. There are a handful of others - more attainable others. More reasonable others. Others she could actually feasibly be with. 

But no. No, her brain keeps on filling in the blanks with broad shoulders and hard pecs and pale skin dotted with dark moles and soft, plush lips, and-

“Miss Jackson, I need to know if a man by the name of Hux has called.”

“Uh.” Yeah, great, smooth, Rey - drooling about the boss in front of said boss, who’s currently looking at her like she’s the village idiot, watching with dark amber eyes as she looks down at her call log, scanning quickly for ‘Hux’. “No, sir, it doesn’t look like he has.”

“Thank you.”

The words are sharp, and her back straightens at the power behind his tone as he walks right by her desk. Just for the hell of it, she leans out of her chair just a little, turning to watch him walk back to his office. 

His ass really does look good in those suit pants…

-

It’s a big affair, the company holiday party. Instead of something small and casual in the office, like they do for departments, the higher ups and most valuable assets rent out the ballroom of some swanky hotel downtown. 

Rey was surprised when she saw the invitation on her desk, the cream envelope shining ever so slightly with golden shimmer. And then she promptly started to panic, because fucking _Kylo._

The dress she’s wearing is the first dress she’s worn in … well, years, if she’s honest. She always dresses nicely for the office, but she always dresses in pants, never skirts or dresses. It’s weird. She feels naked between her legs, even though she knows damn well she’s wearing a nice pair of lace boyshorts to keep the tight dress from revealing the line of her underwear.

“I see you got the invitation.”

Shit, shit, shit-

“I did. Was that your decision?” she asks, turning to see Kylo Ren. Kylo Ren in a fucking tuxedo, holding two glasses of champagne and offering one to her. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Finn and Poe dancing together, both in tuxes as well, their arms wrapped around each other as they slow dance to the live band. 

“It was. I would consider you a valuable asset. You greet our visitors and clients every day with that beautiful smile of yours.”

_Beautiful smile of yours._

She’s damned glad she didn’t just take a sip, because she’s more than sure she would have spat it right back out - and at him, no less. “I - um - thank you?”

His smile is soft. She doesn’t think she’s ever seen him smile. It’s nice. It’s really nice. Much nicer than the smirks he wears in her dreams, his plush lips twisted as he pounds into her and oh, _fuck,_ she should not be thinking about that while he’s staring right at her … 

She loosens her grip on her champagne, realizing that the glass was straining a little under her touch. “Thank you,” she says, more firmly, and more confidently. 

Oh, but to have those amber eyes look her up and down … She feels her mouth go dry. A sip of champagne does not help it in the slightest, and she almost chokes when his eyes meet hers again. “This is the first time I’ve seen you in a dress.” His voice is as soft as his smile. “You look lovely.”

Lovely. He thinks she looks lovely. When did this suddenly go from just wanting to fuck him to flushing deeply at the compliment, looking down at the bubbles in her champagne glass and saying, “You look sexy, too.”

She did not just say that. She did not just say that, oh, God, no - 

And then it reaches her. His laughter. Or at least she thinks it’s his laughter, she can’t tell, she’s staring into her champagne and praying that it suddenly becomes overflowing and can drown her in golden bubbles. 

There’s a finger on her chin, tilting her face up and oh, he’s a lot closer than he was…

“It’s okay,” Kylo says as his hand falls from her chin, in that soft voice of his, and for the first time Rey can see the warmth across his cheeks, the reddened skin between dark strands of hair, his ears pink as well. “I was flirting with you, Rey. Glad to know you feel the same.” Oh, he looks embarrassed … Kylo Ren, CEO and business powerhouse, is embarrassed…

_Feel the same._

“Did Poe tell you?” Rey demands, narrowing her eyes. 

“Did Poe tell me what?” His confusion sounds genuine. 

“Never mind. Want to dance?”

This isn’t the way she dreamt of his hand upon her waist, or her hand laced with his. She imagined her hands above her head, held by one of his as the other grasped her hip and fucked her hard enough that her cheap headboard banged against the wall. But she’ll take this, she thinks, looking up at him as she feels his hand gently rub at her back through the cranberry-colored velvet of her dress. She’ll definitely take this.


	14. don't die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize in advance for any OOC lines, traits, or interactions - since these are short prompts and more for entertainment and fun than serious reading, I hold them to a lower standard than the fics I put hours of writing and editing time into.

**6**. “You can’t die. Please don’t die.”

Posted July 1st 2018

* * *

 

“It’s only for a week, Ben.”

She’s right. The conference is only for a week. It’s not that long, in the scheme of things. How many years did he survive without the taste of her lips, without the feeling of her in his arms, without the softness of her hair against his nose? 

But, then again, he didn’t know what that all felt like before. And now that he knows … 

“They say absence makes the heart grow fonder,” Rey teases him. Over her head he can see her suitcase by the door, her passport and wallet and cellphone waiting and ready to go. He wants to protest that his heart is already as fond of her as it can be, but she’s leaning up to kiss him, her hand finding his neck. 

“If you kill my plants, then I’ll be killing you.”

It’s teasing, muttered against his lips, tasting of that new lip balm she bought after she lost the last one (again) and kept on using his (again). He’s not sure if he likes this one yet. 

“I’ll take care of the plants,” he promises, his hands finding her hips to pull her in for one last embrace before the cab comes. 

“Good. I’ll text you instructions, all right?”

He can’t help but scoff a little at her insistence. He’s a professional chef, owns his own restaurant and everything. If he can follow a recipe with over 54 steps, then he can water the damn plants that take up almost every shelf, tabletop, windowsill, and even hang from the ceiling. “All right, love. Have a safe flight.”

One more kiss (and then a few more) and then he watches her close the door behind her. 

A week. He can do a week without her. 

The plant nearest to him is on the table by the door, where they keep their catch-all trays, one for her and one for him. It’s a little plant, a tiny little bush sort of thing that Rey prunes sometimes. … will he have to prune it? Is that going to be part of his plant daddy duties? Or is it just watering?

“You can’t die,” Ben says, feeling ridiculous for talking to a little plant barely bigger than his hand, but if that’s what it takes. “Please don’t die. Because if you do die, then she’ll be mad. And I really don’t want a divorce.”

-

The instructions, as they come, are fairly simple. She goes into detail about which plants are which, describes them accordingly, and then describes what they need. Simple enough, really. 

Or it should be. If he remembered to do it. 

He sees the first dead leaf when he’s making his coffee three days into her being gone. He’s half asleep, yawning as he waits for the water to boil, the fog still clinging to his brain as he looks over to the viney little thing that trails down from the top of the fridge and-

“Shit!”

And so he makes Post-It notes. Neon ones, green and blue and pink and yellow and orange. ‘SPRITZ THREE TIMES WHEN YOU COME HOME’, and ‘WATER UNTIL SOIL IS MOIST THEN LEAVE IT ALONE’ and ‘USE THE DROPPER NEXT TO THE POT - 3 DROPS ON WEDNESDAY’. 

He means to cut the dead vines off the first casualty on the top of the fridge, he really does. He means to make it look like it was never even sick, but he’s running late that morning and he completely forgets about it until the doorknob is turning and he’s trying to take the flourless chocolate cake out of the oven and _shit shit shit shit!_

Apologies are whispered like prayers into her lips, before he realizes that Rey’s shaking, her hands on his shoulders. She’s trembling and oh, fuck, if he can’t even take care of a plant, how is he supposed to take care of a child if and when they decide to have one, fuck, fuck fuck!

And then Ben hears a giggle come from his wife as she reaches up to tuck some hair behind his ear. He feels like he’s going to cry. 

“That vine’s been dead for a month, Ben, I just keep on forgetting to ask you to take it down for me. I kneel on the counter to water it, but I can’t lift it down, it’s too heavy.”

Oh.

He’s pretty sure that his blushing ears could finish roasting the chicken he has in the oven, but her giggles and the kisses and, the mutiple “You’re so cute”-s make it worth the embarrassment.


	15. pickup line.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize in advance for any OOC lines, traits, or interactions - since these are short prompts and more for entertainment and fun than serious reading, I hold them to a lower standard than the fics I put hours of writing and editing time into.

_**29**. “It must be hard with your sense of direction, never being able to find your way to a decent pickup line.”_

Posted June 30th 2018

* * *

 

She came to the coffee house for one very sole, very specific reason - to read her book in peace. She doesn’t judge her roommate, no, she’d never do that, but Rey is a little bit annoyed that there’s seemingly a new boy every single morning, afternoon, and evening. Or maybe it’s just a handful of boys she rotates, who knows? Whatever the case, Rey’s tired of them going at it on the bed _right below her_   _when she’s in the same room._

And so the coffee shop down the street it is. Their tea is decent, for someplace whose specialty is coffee, and they have a wall that’s entirely bookshelf, with worn books that people have donated. She’s making her way through the fantasy shelf, sitting in one of the armchairs that’s kind of falling in on itself after so many bodies have sat in and draped across and collapsed into it. It’s still comfy, though, and so she sits sideways, one hand holding the book open as the other reaches to tear a bite off of the croissant she ordered.

“You look busy today, but I was wondering if you’d add me to your to-do list?”

Oh, for _fuck’s sake_.

She came her to get away from fucking, not to be baited into it herself. 

The thing is, there’s another guy in the coffee house who comes to read. And every single time she’s come here, without fail, he’s dropped one of the lines on her. And every single time she’s kept her gaze steadily at her book, and told him to go away, because she’s not going to dignify stupid pick up lines like that with a glance his way, because that means he got her attention, and just no.

She’s gotten everything from the cheesy angel-related pick-up lines to ones with awful puns. Rey has to wonder if he just uses a random generator or something, because they’re getting progressively worse.

“It must be hard with your sense of direction, never being able to find your way to a decent pickup line,” she says, staring at her book still. “Seriously, every single one you’ve said is awful.”

“I try to avoid the blatantly sexist ones, or the ones that make me seem like a conceited asshole.”

It’s the first thing he’s said to her that isn’t a pickup line. She supposes she should be grateful that he’s left her alone after she told him to go away, taking ‘no’ for an answer until her next visit. And yeah, all right, they’ve been corny, sure, but they haven’t been disrespectful.

Rey looks up from her book. 

Well, _shit._

She should’ve looked up sooner. 

The man standing beside her chair is _gorgeous._ And _huge._ Moles are scattered across a pale face, a large nose and full lips. His hair is soft and dark, just coming to the collar of the dark brown leather jacket he’s wearing. And his eyes, fuck, his eyes are dark and warm and oh, shit, he looks sheepish…

“My friends are giving me five dollars for every line I tell you,” he confesses. “I mean, I’d come up to you anyway, but I figured I blew my chances after saying all of those lines.”

No, no, he most certainly did not. 

She sees him gesture over to a table, where he presumably came with his friends. She looks around his body - fuck, that’s a nice body, though - and sees-

“What the fuck?!”

“Sorry?” the gorgeous man asks, staring at her. 

“Sorry, not you,” Rey corrects quickly as she swings her legs over the chair and stands, setting her book down and pushing by him to confront the three people currently laughing on one of the worn-out couches. “ _What_ do you think you’re doing?”

“Setting you up,” Poe says simply from where he’s sitting with his arm around Finn, Finn’s arm around Rose. Rose and Poe are grinning mischievously while Finn’s just shaking his head, his smile a bit softer. “Took you long enough to look up.”

“You paid someone to hit on me.”

“We didn’t pay him to hit on you. He expressed an interest to me, and I took advantage of the situation. Best 50 bucks I’ve ever spent,” Poe explains, his grin widening. “Hi, Ben.”

_Expressed an interest. Ben. As in-_

“Ben Solo?” Rey demands, whipping around to see Ben standing behind her, looking like he wants to die. She might join him, actually. 

Ben Solo. Son of Han Solo, one of her sculptor heroes, and Leia Organa, the owner of the gallery Rey’s been trying to get her work into for years, now. Ben Solo, the man she’s been begging Poe to invite to dinner for the past four months once Poe told her he and Ben were sharing a lecture. Ben Solo, the man she told herself she wouldn’t stalk on Facebook or Instagram or anything because no, that’s creepy, and besides, she didn’t want to embarrass herself while talking to him and let slip some information that she could have only found through an hours-deep dig into his profiles.

“Sorry about all of this,” Ben says, and yes, he is Ben Solo, she can see both Han and Leia in him and oh, _boy…_

“It’s fine.” Her voice comes out higher than she’d like. 

“Ben, Rey. Rey, Ben. Good, now that you’ve met each other, you can go out,” Poe says simply.

“Poe,” Rey finds herself hissing, turning and glaring at her friend who just holds his hands up in surrender. 

“Actually…”

Her gaze whips around to the man beside her, watching his ears turn pink beneath his dark hair and fucking hell, he’s cuter than she thought he would be. 

“Do you want to go out?” he asks. “I mean, if you don’t want to, that’s-”

“Yes.”

Poe gives her shit for the next few years of dating about how quickly she answered. He gives her shit in his best man’s speech, too, much to the amusement of their guests as she turns and tucks her face into Ben’s neck, his hand coming to hers and squeezing softly. She can’t help but smile against his pale skin as he whispers, “I’m glad you said yes.”


	16. safe.

_"You're safe now, I've got you."_

Posted June 30th 2018

* * *

 

“Stop it, Poe.”

Her fellow counselor’s laughter quiets, but doesn’t stop entirely. He keeps chuckling as they make their way to the mess hall, kids rushing by them to get the first chocolate chip pancakes of the summer. “Oh, come on, it’s funny! A lakeside summer camp counselor who can’t swim? Isn’t that part of the requirements?”

“Not if you’re not going to be swimming,” Rey grumbles. “Why do you think I picked arts and crafts?”

And … well … dueling. It’s a fantasy camp, after all. In between lake dips and crafting, there’s also lightsaber fights and sword fights, some archery for the Lord of the Rings kids. She’s surrounded by nerds, sure, but adorable little nerds who make her feel like some sort of hero when she spins her ‘sword’ and greets them for the first time. 

She wouldn’t exchange that feeling for the world. 

“I just think it’s funny,” Poe says, grinning. “So you’re not going to put on the mermaid tail?” he asks, of the mermaid tail the camp splurged for. The kids have their own neoprene ones, with monofins, but they do have one for a counselor with all the bells and whistles, individual scales and texture and proper painting. It makes for a great photo, and the kids - and parents - love it.

“No way in hell,” Rey responds, turning and glaring at the veteran counselor. Poe’s been here for as long as she can remember, his dark curls sprinkled with grey and the smiles around his eyes getting deeper with every year. But his enthusiasm for the little kids never ceases, and his smile doesn’t, either. 

“Not even for Ben?”

Oh, she’s gonna kill him for that. “Not even for Ben,” Rey says underneath her breath. She can see the other counselor walking to the mess hall, his hands tucked into his jeans and the olive green camp t-shirt spread tight across his broad chest. “You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?” 

“Nope,” Poe says, popping the ‘P’.

Ben, the counselor who’s been here for about as long as Poe. Ben, who used to go by Kylo when she was a camper, who rebelled and wore black t-shirts and jeans instead of the camp shirt, who was incredible at the sword and lightsaber demonstrations - still is. Ben, the counselor she had a major crush on when she was younger, Ben who - very gently, very sweetly - turned her down when her naive and innocent 14 year old self asked him out. She was prompted to by the rest of her cabin, the girls giggling behind her as Ben told her how old he was, and how it wouldn’t be right considering the age difference, and everything like that. He was letting her down as gently as he possibly could, she knows that, now, and her cheeks still flush as she remembers his reddened ears and his stutter as he tried to figure out how to turn down a damn child.

Poe, another counselor who’d actually taken the time to explain to her the legality and awkwardness of the whole thing beforehand, had laughed his ass off, but hugged her in between ‘I told you so’s. Because he had. He’d told her so, and under the pressure of the rest of her cabin, she’d gone and done it anyway, and embarrassed the fuck out of herself in the process.

“I remember you sitting on the shore while the other kids jumped in, but I thought you just didn’t like swimming,” Poe explains as he opens the door to the mess hall for her. The old metal door creaks on its hinges, and the smell of breakfast food smacks her in the face. 

“I didn’t want a counselor to teach me how to swim, or to give me water wings when I was 12,” Rey says under her breath. Not like it really matters; the loud chatter of excited kids covers her embarrassing confession just enough. Poe hears, though, and laughs again as they make their way to the line offering pancakes with different fillings.

“Hey.”

She knows that voice anywhere, and dreads that he ended up behind her as she feels the gentle touch to her arm. Ben’s fingers are calloused from training, practicing for the kids, and they send a shiver up her spine as she turns to look up at the man. A history teacher during the year at some college, and a trainer on the weekends, Ben Solo looks the same as he did last year - and the year before. His face is a bit softer than it was when he was Kylo, than it was when she asked him out all those years ago. His smile is more shy, too, his teeth not straight at all - teenage rebellion, he’d explained, when asked, laughing. 

“How was your junior year?” he asks as they step up in line. He hands her a tray. She hates the way her cheeks still flush in front of him. 

“Got to take more engineering and sculpture classes, so that’s good. Less requirements to get out of the way,” she replies. Poe looks to her over his shoulder. 

“Oh, hey, Ben!” 

Saved by the other male friend, Rey thinks, as she takes the opportunity to switch places with Poe, her cheeks still flaming as Poe and Ben talk about the new classes for the summer, new activities, how their years went as teachers. 

-

Poe planned this. Or Leia. Or Han. Or someone. Someone had it in for her, she’s sure of it, as she looks at her schedule for the day. 

“Leia, I need to talk to you.”

“What is it, Rey?”

“I can’t do lake duty.”

“Why not?”

“I … can’t swim.”

“There will be other counselors there, you can just sit on the dock and tell the kids not to splash.”

There will be other counselors there, Leia said. Rey should have recognized the look in the older woman’s eye. She really, really should have. 

“Oh, come on, it’s lake duty, it’s not a death sentence,” Poe tells her, his arms crossed over his chest as she rummages through her suitcase for some sports bra that will do as a bathing suit. Because she didn’t bring a bathing suit. Because she _can’t fucking swim._

“It’s lake duty with Ben, it might as well be,” Rey grumbles as she finds a plain black one that might - _might_ \- work. “Turn around.”

Poe does as told, still standing in the doorway into her little bathroom as she pulls her t-shirt over her head. “I don’t see what the big deal is, it’s not like you’re wearing the tail.”

“I wouldn’t mind the tail. At least with the tail you’re busy. Leia told me to just sit on the dock and tell kids not to splash.”

“Bring a book. Or gaze at his glistening chest in awe and wonderment, I don’t fucking know,” Poe suggests.

“Book will get wet, and there is no way in hell I am doing the other thing,” Rey insists as she pulls the sports bra over her chest. She can wear the nylon shorts she wears during sword practice, thankfully, so she tugs those up over her normal underwear before looking down to check if the bra reveals too much. 

“Just keep calm, and it will be fine,” Poe tells her.

Easier said than done. 

Finn’s one of the other counselors on duty, and she thanks every single deity from every culture she can think of as he hangs with her. Poe must have texted him her issue, because he has no problem standing in the water below her dangling feet and talking to her, like they’re just hanging out, just talking about their school years. After a rigid upbringing, Finn’s now in art school, and he’s damn good at it, too. “Remind me to show you some pieces later,” he tells her. 

She wishes desperately he would show her some pieces now, to distract her from the Greek god who is Ben Solo.

The man is built like a brick house, happily playing with the kids. They shriek and laugh as he tosses them gently up into the air and into the lake water, a line forming to be thrown. It’s soft, of course, just enough height for a thrill, but nothing dangerous. He’s laughing with them, a sound Rey’s not entirely familiar with, but she’s going to have a ridiculously hard time forgetting. 

Well, shit.

“Mr. Finn, can I go back to my cabin and get my goggles?” 

“It’s just Finn, Rachel,” Finn corrects, grinning at the little girl standing on the shore, wrapped in a towel. “Here, let me walk you back. Make sure you put your shoes back on, okay?” He turns to Rey. “I’ll be right back.”

She nods, watching as Finn emerges from the water - also god-like, dark skin shining with water droplets, but she knows he’s into Poe, has known for years. While she was staring moonily at Ben Solo, he was staring at Poe Dameron, and when he told her with a shaky voice by the campfire as everyone else was singing, she told him she already knew. 

Rey smiles as she watches him help the little girl into her sandals again, the towel wrapped around her shoulders as he walks her back to her cabin. She doesn’t even hear the footsteps behind her, doesn’t see Ben turning, doesn’t hear him say, “Jack, don’t do that!” 

“Miss Rey!” 

“Ach!”

Little arms are wrapped around her shoulders and neck, throwing her off balance. Her stomach plummets as her balance fails, and she shrieks, falling into the water with one of her favorite campers still latched onto her back. Jack lets go a moment later, she can feel him kick himself away, can hear his laughter, but she comes up and starts flailing, not feeling the soft, gooey sand of the lake between her toes. 

“I can’t-” she starts, before water enters her nose and her mouth, and she starts spluttering, choking, gasping for air.

There are arms around her immediately, a low voice saying, "You’re safe now, I’ve got you,” and then she’s being lifted out of the water. Her hands find hard muscle beneath warm, water-slicked skin, and she coughs up more lake water as Ben Solo keeps her in a bridal carry and oh, _fuck_ …

“Jack, don’t sneak up on people like that, and don’t pull them into the water if they don’t want to be in the water. That’s strike one for today, do I make myself clear?”

She’s never heard Ben speak like that, not even to a troublemaker like Jack. The little boy says, “Yes, Mr. Solo,” in a meek voice, and Rey just barely hears Ben reassuring him that it’s all right, just not to do it again. 

She can feel the water against her toes, cool and sweet, can feel Ben’s hands still holding her arm and her thigh, her hand pressed to his shoulder, clinging. Looking down, the water’s …

Probably, like, four feet deep. She could have stood up. She could have fucking _stood up._

“It’s all right, I’ve got you,” Ben says again. He knows she can stand, he has to. But he’s still holding her, still cradling her, still looking down at her with those amber eyes and oh, _fuck, this is really happening._

“Your mom told you,” she accuses. Of course Leia told him she couldn’t swim. Leia orchestrated this whole thing, more than likely. 

“Mom told me,” he confirms, flashing that sheepish grin with his crooked teeth that sends warmth through her veins.

He still hasn’t let her go. She can still feel the strength of his arms, his warm skin against hers, can still feel the lake water dripping from his hair down to her chest where the sports bra doesn’t cover. He doesn’t laugh at her, he doesn’t tell her she could have stood up, he doesn’t make fun of her. 

Instead, after he’s let her go, and they’ve dried off, and they’re walking the group of campers back to their cabins to change, he makes her an offer. 

“It would have to be during both of our free times,” he tells her. “But if you want, I can teach you.”

Ben Solo. Teaching her how to swim. 

“I don’t want the kids to see,” she tries. 

“We could do it at night, then, with Mom’s permission.”

“I didn’t bring any bathing suits,” Rey finds herself confessing. “This is just a sports bra.”

He looks at her, and her blood runs this mixture of hot and cold. He’s never looked at her like that before. There’s always warmth in his eyes, his smile, a gentle softness she’s known for years. This? This is none of that. This is something more, something hotter, something harder, and she’s fucking paralyzed by it, and by the little smirk he gives her. 

“You’re 21,” he says. “I’d say bathing suit is optional.”

He knows. He _fucking knows she still likes him._

“When?” The word falls from her lips before she can stop it. 

“When you came back and became a senior counselor.” Senior counselors are eighteen and older. “And let’s say 10.”

And then he just walks away, lake water still dripping down the muscles of his shoulders. She stands there, watching him go, before doing a quick run down of Poe’s schedule in her head and then booking it to the obstacle course.


	17. demon/angel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize in advance for any OOC lines, traits, or interactions - since these are short prompts and more for entertainment and fun than serious reading, I hold them to a lower standard than the fics I put hours of writing and editing time into.
> 
> WARNING: THIS STORY HAS SOME SEXUAL ASSAULT/DUBIOUS CONSENT/ABUSE ELEMENTS (not between Ben and Rey, of course). EVERYTHING TURNS OUT FINE, BUT IT IS MENTIONED. IF THAT MAKES YOU AT ALL UNCOMFORTABLE, I WOULD SKIP THIS ONE!!!!

__**32.** Demons / fallen angels / angels / any mythological equivalent.  
 **4.**  Forbidden relationship (characters cannot be together and pine from a distance; characters do get together but must always be secretive about it.)  
 **18.**  Betrayal (to an enemy; by a cheating partner, etc.)

Posted June 25th 2018

* * *

 

Even demons get guardian angels. Yes, he thought it was odd too, when he first heard of the program. 

There are several hundred kind souls who, like those in retirement, get very bored in the pearly paradise that is Heaven. And so they become guardian angels, either to the loved ones they left behind, or to those who have no loved ones of their own. It’s a popular job, especially for those who perished helping others - the police, the firefighters, the activists, etc. 

Less popular is the subdivision, D.N.G.A. Demons Needing Guardian Angels. 

And so Ben applied, because he’s apparently a glutton for punishment. 

Some demons come and go, being active for years before deciding to take a break, and then returning. Some demons rotate between assigned angels. Some eventually repent for their sins, and Ben sees them unite with their guardian angel beyond the pearly gates, both laughing and hugging. 

And some demons are new to the job. 

“Here.”

The thin black file is slapped onto his desk by one of the upper agents, who then walks away. Ben stares at him before he looks down at the file, and opens it. 

-

Rey. Her name is _Rey._ Odd, Ben thinks. Most demon names are much, much longer. And usually contain three syllables, at least. Hers is just three letters. 

She likes seducing people. So her choice sin is sex, he thinks, looking down at the file. She frequents the seedy bars in little towns, where the truckers and factory workers go after work. They’re easy. They’re already sinning in some regard, for the most part. It’s the preachers the older, more powerful demons pray on. Newbies like her go for those who are already on the path to Hell. 

The first time his alert goes off, she’s at some bar in Michigan. It’s cold as, well, Hell, and he watches as his breath plumes in front of his face. He can see her, pinned against the wall by some man much, much larger than her. Ben can hear her snapping and snarling. She hasn’t learned her powers yet, so it seems. This wouldn’t be a difficult situation for an experienced demon. They’d turn into smoke and leave the man confused as Hell. She hasn’t figured it out yet, it seems. 

“Hey!” Ben calls, watching as the man’s attention turns towards him. “Someone’s calling for you inside.”

“Fuck off!” 

Ben watches as the man’s hand finds her thigh, sliding the thin black skirt up-

He’s beside the man in a heartbeat, faster than a human ever could move. There’s recognition in the demon’s eyes as Ben’s hand finds the man’s puffer jacket. “Hey-!” The man shouts, before his anger turns into pain, Ben’s hand glowing white hot and melting through the nylon of the jacket. 

“I said, someone’s calling for you,” he growls. 

The man rips himself out of Ben’s grip, peeling away from him and rushing back into the bar, shouting that he needs ice. Ben watches him go before looking back to Rey. Her skirt’s been shoved up, and he can see the black lace of her panties, can see her pale skin through the fabric. She makes no effort to fix it, watching him with dark black eyes, no white, and no pupils. He averts his eyes politely. 

“I was having fun.”

“The alert I received says otherwise,” Ben explains. 

“Who the fuck are you?”

“I’m your guardian angel. Ben. Pleasure to meet you.”

He holds out his hand for her to take. She just stares at it. 

“ … guardian angel?” she scoffs. 

Great. Great start.

-

The other angels in his department make fun of him for having the most devious demon in over a decade. Rey’s a spitfire, it seems, causing chaos wherever she goes. She seems to enjoy gang and prison fights, the most, putting herself directly in harm’s way. Ben has to wonder if she’s doing it so that he’ll come. Her little smirk when he grabs her and pulls her away suggests that she does. 

But sometimes she will do other things. There are prison breaks with her name all over them, the news releasing stories about how a female guard in an all-male prison somehow let five murderers loose. More often than not, they’re kids, who have been tried as adults, Ben notices, flipping through the papers that just scream _Rey did it!_  

Angels aren’t supposed to know the backstory of their demon. It goes against several rules. They know what their demon’s name is, how long they’ve been in Hell, and what they’re their for. That’s it. And so while Rey’s ‘murder’ sentence gives him a clue, it doesn’t give him enough. 

Why he’s risking his ass to find this out, he has no idea, he thinks, as he snags an FBI badge from one of the other angels, a former agent. But he needs to know. 

-

Bruises, her elementary school teachers tell him. A quiet girl, kept to herself, her junior high teachers say. An avid reader, before her father kept her from coming, the librarian of her little town in Arizona says. He said there was no point in reading, in learning. 

Abuse. All the signs point to abuse. 

Her foster father was named Plutt. Ben finds a newspaper clipping from a few years ago, detailing how 14 year old Rey Jackson strangled her foster father with one of his belts. Ben would bet his wings that he hit her with said belt. 

Rey Jackson, he thinks, watching her as she lets another child loose. Tried for murder of her father. The system was against her from the beginning, Ben thinks. And so Rey is leveling the scales.

He grabs Rey a heartbeat after the child runs free, making sure she isn’t involved in the riot that ensues. 

-

The first time they kiss, she’s covered in gravel, and blood, and bruises.

“Sh, sh, it’s all right,” Ben whispers, cradling her on the side of the road. He looks out for red and blue lights. The other driver is already gone, without a scratch on his car and alcohol still lingering in his system. Rey’s bike is a mangled mess, as is she. “It’s all right, this is what I’m here for, it’s all right…”

They may be immortal, but they are not bulletproof. 

She sobs into his white t-shirt, clinging to him. He shifts her, looking for any sign of cops as he holds her. They’re tucked into the woods along the side of the country road, the dark concealing the angel and the demon. Her sobs are heart wrenching, and he strokes her hair, shushing her sweetly and whispering soft things to her. 

He doesn’t expect the kiss. 

When he came to Heaven, he was a virgin. He guesses it counts for a good portion of his ticket. He was a good kid, but not great, not a regular church-goer or anything. He can only guess why he ended up an angel. 

And so when she kisses him, he has no idea what he’s doing, none at all. Not to mention the fact that intimacy, both sexual and emotional, is strictly prohibited at the agency, and taken incredibly seriously. 

But if it makes her feel better, if this is what she needs … 

_God, forgive him._

His hand slips up to spread between her shoulder blades, and he kisses her back as best as he can. She tastes of tears and the coppery tang of blood as she whispers that _he’s the only one who’s ever been there for her._ _Thank you,_ she sobs in between kisses. _Thank you, thank you, thank you…_

-

If anyone were to find out, then he would have his halo revoked. He has no idea where he would go from there. Maybe purgatory. Maybe Hell. Maybe he’d join her as a demon. He has no idea, and it keeps him up at night worrying about it, but then she kisses him again, and he forgets everything. 

The other angels continue to make fun of him for his alert ringing constantly, but in secret, he knows she’s not really in trouble. She gets herself into a tiny bit of trouble, and then he comes to save her, and then he pulls her into his arms in the shadow of a building and kisses her. Her hand slides up his t-shirt, feeling the base of his wings, tucked up inside of his t-shirt and his brown leather jacket. The other sinks into his hair, as his hand finds her waist, and they keep kissing until it becomes suspicious for him to take that long saving her ass. 

“See you soon,” she whispers against his lips, her smirk sinful, eyes jet black. 

“See you soon,” he promises, kissing her once more before going back to the office and making up some random and absurd story of what his little demon got into this time. 

-

It all goes to shit a few months later. 

His alert goes off in the early morning. Rey’s a demon of the night, yes, but not a demon of 6am. Ben groans before shoving himself into his shoes and speeding off through the night, finding her, yet again, at some bar in some rundown old town, pinned against the wall by a man easily three times her width. 

Rey knows how to handle herself, he knows that, he’s just there when she needs the big guns. And so he watches as she easily slips from the man’s grasp, twisting his wrist and slipping underneath his arm and towards Ben. Ben’s arm wraps around her waist, tugging her to him, and they speed off into the night, somewhere safe, somewhere that isn’t a seedy bar. 

It’s not until they reach a deserted park that she starts to shake, and Ben puts the pieces together. 

“He wasn’t Plutt,” he tells her as they sit together on the carousel, in one of the seats for those who can’t get up on the horses. “He wasn’t Plutt, Plutt’s dead, you killed him, he’s dead…”

She yanks away from him violently, her black eyes flashing. “You know?”

“I’m not supposed to.” Yeah, like that helps. “I’m sorry, I didn’t-”

“You’re not supposed to know!” 

It’s the most demonic he’s ever seen her, sharp teeth bared and eyes ink black, everything about her screaming _hellish_  before she speeds off into the night in a blur of black smoke, leaving him in a worn-out shell-shaped bench with chipped paint and butt impressions. 

-

“You understand your sins.” 

“Yes, Father.”

“And you understand your punishment.”

“Yes, Father.”

His voice echoes in the bright white room. The figure before him is too bright to look at. Even with his gaze lowered, it’s painful. 

“Then begone.”

There are silk sheets beneath him. He can hear the shower running in the other room. He frowns, lifting his head as he hears taxi horns from below. His punishment is … living in Manhattan?

“I was wondering when you were going to wake up.”

Rey’s eyes are a more human amber as she emerges from the bathroom, her hair wrapped in a towel and bare body still dripping some water. Ben sits up, his eyes wide as she grins sinfully, letting the towel fall from her head before she crawls across the bed to kiss him. 

“I thought my punishment was purgatory…?” he asks, frowning. Is she human? Are they both human? What the fuck is going on?

Her hand finds his cheek. “Your punishment was to join us. You must have done something really, really bad.”

“I broke several rules by finding out about your former life and Plutt, impersonating an FBI agent, and falling in love with the demon I was assigned to,” Ben mutters against her lips. “I’m sorry for that, by the way. It’s just the kids you released, and your sentence, I just thought maybe there was a connec-”

“Hey,” she says, firmly, pulling back and looking him in the eyes. This time, hers are the black he knows, the black he loves, the black he’s compared to the night sky and deep velvet and other gorgeous things. “Stop. I forgive you.” 

“Thank God.”

“While you’re at it, thank him for sending you here, would you?”

His grin is absolutely sinful as he leans in for another kiss.

 


	18. abandoned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize in advance for any OOC lines, traits, or interactions - since these are short prompts and more for entertainment and fun than serious reading, I hold them to a lower standard than the fics I put hours of writing and editing time into.
> 
> WARNING: As you can probably tell from the numbers below, this story could potentially have some triggers/unhealthy elements. If that makes you at all uncomfortable, I'd return to one of the fluffy ones, or just hit that 'next chapter' button. I did not write about cannibalism (which is why it has a strike through it - while it was requested, I did not feel comfortable writing it) but the rest could potentially be uncomfortable for some readers.

**11.** Obsession (stalking; possessive behavior; Character A thinks about Character B so much it’s borderline/full-out creepy, etc.)  
~~**31.** Cannibalism.~~  
**33.**  Love/hate relationships (emphasis on elements of personality that characters don’t like about each other; “I hate you so much I just want to make out with you!” etc.)  
**45.** Abandoned locations (asylums, hospitals, towns, carnivals, etc.)

Posted June 25th 2018

* * *

She was one of those left behind.

It’s not a bad existence, not entirely. The asylum has a garden, and a greenhouse. She can grow her own food. There are rabbits wandering about the grounds, and she makes traps for them. Rabbit is more tender than squirrel is, and they produce more meat, but she won’t complain if a squirrel wanders into her trap. Her nets capture cardinals and blue jays and robins. She lets the sparrows go. They’re too precious, too sweet, and too small to fill her stomach. 

She’s not entirely sure why she was brought here. The nurses wouldn’t answer her, when they were here. But she was never given medication like the other children, she was never put in a padded room, she never babbled or shrieked or did other sorts of odd things. She was just … Rey. 

The asylum is her home. For all of its peeling paint and cracking floor tiles, it is her home. Some windows are broken from storms. A tree fell into the east wing, where the babies once cried, and so she never enters that part of the hospital. Her gown is stained, now, from years of wear, and it doesn’t fit like it once did. She went into the dormitories of the older children and found a better fitting one, but it still doesn’t fit like it should. This was a children’s asylum. She is no longer a child. 

The winters come with their dreadful chills, and she lights a fire in the director’s office to keep warm. The springs come with their flowers and vegetables, and she goes down, down into the kitchen and cans as many as she can, using the few cans she found in the pantry and the single pot someone forgot. The summers come with their heat and sunshine, illuminating the usually dark hallways. There is no glass in the barred windows, anymore. Birds fly in and sing their songs. There is no tune to them, even though she always tries to find one, and whistle along. 

She hopes that someone eventually realizes their mistake, and comes back for her. 

But the day someone does, they’re not there for her. 

 _He’s_ not there for her.

“Look at that tree. There would be no sense in repairing the building, it’s almost destroyed already.”

“We should examine the inside, first.”

Voices she doesn’t recognize, voices she doesn’t know. It’s autumn, the chilled wind just starting to blow in through the open windows, and the light just starting to fade. She huddles behind the rotten, wooded secretary’s desk, hearing the jingle of a lock, the grunt of a man, and the clinking of chains. The front door is locked, always has been. The cellar doors and two of the side doors leading to the gardens and shed were hastily chained up, though, and she’d managed to open them without much difficulty. 

The main door creaks from a decade of abandonment, rust on its hinges. Over the lip of the desk, she can see three figures, silhouetted by the autumn sun. Male, she decides. She’s not stupid. She wasn’t that young when she was left, perhaps eight or nine, she doesn’t know anymore. She marks the wall of what was her room, but she hasn’t counted in months. 

“Look at it, they just up and left. There’s still a wheelchair.”

“Don’t touch it. I wouldn’t be surprised if it fell to dust and dead termites as soon as a breeze found it.”

They walk right by her. Three of them, one with an unlit oil lanterns in his hand, another with a hammer and a set of keys. The other one with a clipboard, like the ones the nurses used. Rey recoils under the desk, observing the waistcoat of one of them, seeing the tails of the coat of the other. Wealthy men, then. Why are wealthy men in her hospital?

“The stairs aren’t structurally sound. See, they’re falling apart.”

Those are the main stairs. They were grand in their time, wooden and gleaming, shined by the children every day to impress visitors. They fell apart a few years ago, thanks to the water damage coming in from the ceiling. She uses the stairs in the corridors, mainly, because they are more intact. 

“Most of the windows are broken in as well. Lord Ren, I don’t believe there would be any sense in salvaging the building. It may as well be torn down and stripped for materials. As grand as it is, it would make for a poor manor, and cost more than it’s worth to rebuild it.”

A manor?! Her hospital?! He wants to build a manor here?! Not on her life!

“No, I suppose it wouldn’t,” one of the men drawls. Lord Ren, Rey assumes, peeking her head out from beneath the desk in an attempt to catch a glimpse. In the few books she’s read, the few that have survived the water damage in the library, all of the villains and evil, greedy men have been foul-looking. With greasy mustaches and potbellies and wrinkled jowls. She’s eager to see if the stories are true, but when she manages to get a better glimpse, she sees no one who fits the description. 

Instead, she wonders, briefly, if such men could even possibly exist outside of the she’d found books showing Michelangelo and DaVinci’s figures. 

He is _huge._  With skin like porcelain, contrasted with the dark wool of his black suit, and hair just as dark. It’s sleek, though, and soft-looking, like the feathers of the crows she befriended years ago. They still bring her gifts, sometimes, shiny things that she treasures. 

She feels odd. Hot, her cheeks ablaze and lower stomach aflame. Something … something is _wrong_ , she thinks, her eyes widening as she realizes she’s leaned out too far, and that she’s looking directly into the eyes of Lord Ren. 

“By Gods, it’s a girl!”

-

Lord Ren, as she finds out, is a very, very prominent member of English nobility. Lord Ren, as she also finds out, is not as nice as he seems. 

At first her tolerates her. Poe Dameron, the man with the clipboard, insists upon looking into why she was left at the asylum. He also insists upon her staying with Lord Ren, which does nothing to help the thoughts she finds plaguing her mind. How handsome the lord looks in blue, or black. How wonderful he smells when he stands close to her, even if it isn’t for long. To be in his house is to be imprisoned by his presence, surrounded by his things and his portraits and him, him, _him._

This house is worse for her sanity than the damn asylum was. 

And then, as the weeks pass, and Mr. Dameron tears apart her home looking for paperwork that could lead them to some doctor, some nurse, anyone who could give them an answer, Lord Ren comes to _despise_ her.

“Could you possibly eat more neatly?”

There were no forks or knives or spoons in the asylum. What she did eat she ate with her fingers, but no matter how many times she explains it to him, he seems to forget. 

Rey glares him down across the table, and bites into the dove wing with vigor. 

The scrape of his chair against the mahogany floor startles her, the wing falling from her fingers. The sound of his footsteps is muffled by the fine rug beneath them, but she can feel the force of them, still, and stares wide-eyed up at the lord as he puts his hands down on the table and looms over her. 

It is not fear racing through her blood as he glares at her, oh, no. It is something equally as strong, but much, much different. 

“If you are going to behave like a heathen in my house, then you will not stay in my house. Do I make myself clear, Miss Rey?” 

It’s growled, his voice low and deep, and Rey wonders if it is possible for someone to combust from heat alone. Still, she glares right back. “I am trying,” she hisses. “But forks and knives were not left at the asylum, and I was too busy trying to _live_ to find the time to make any, so you will forgive me that I am unused to holding such things!”

In most lights, she has noticed, his eyes look like the chocolate Mr. Dameron is so fond of giving her as a treat. In this light, though, in the light of the fire behind her and in the light of his own hatred, they look like molten amber, and she is captivated, feeling her chest rise and fall in the tight corset she’s been forced to wear. His eyes slip lower. He’s noticed, too. 

She watches his jaw tense, before he’s pushing himself away from her. Her wine glass teeters with the force of his hands on the table, and she reaches to grab it just before it falls. 

She wonders if he notices how the red stains her lips.

-

Lord Ren’s chambers aren’t hard to find. He’s off on a business trip, setting the destruction of what once was her home, and is soon to be his new manor. She entered his rooms with all of the intent of destroying some of his things, stabbing his trousers and dress shirts, tearing his coats to shreds in revenge for destroying the only place she’s ever known. However, now, standing in front of his wardrobe, she can’t do it. 

Not when everything smells like _him_.

His dress shirts are made out of the finest silks, and softest cottons and linens. Her fingers brush against a fine one, a floral pattern woven delicately into the fabric. The light shifts on it as she brings it out from the wardrobe, highlighting the little flowers. A formal shirt. One worn to a ball, or for a special occasion, she thinks, holding it in her hands and watching it shine in the low light of the lantern that she brought. 

A shame, to destroy something so beautiful … She never had such pretty things at the asylum. And as hard and hateful as Lord Ren may be, he has provided her with more pretty things than she could have ever asked for … 

Her night shift is a pain to undo. So many laces and ribbons and buttons. She misses the simple shifts she had at the asylum, even though this shift keeps her much, much warmer. Rey steps out of the cashmere shift, standing bare in the middle of Lord Ren’s rooms before she shivers and reaches for the dress shirt. 

The silk feels like cool butter against her skin as it slides down her arms and flutters to just below her ass. The neck has buttons, complicated things, no doubt so that a tie or cravat can be placed accordingly. She leaves them open for now, though, feeling the winter air come through the cracks in the window and brushing her bare legs and clavicle. It doesn’t smell as much like him as his coats and every day shirts do, but she lifts the cuff of the shirt to her nose anyway, and breathes. 

“What in the hell are you doing?”

He’s upon her in seconds, not touching her, no, but so close she could touch him, if she so wanted to. And God forgive her, she wants to … 

“I invite you into my home,” he growls, stepping even closer. “I bathe you, I clothe you, I give you jewels, and food, and perfume, and silks, and a _bed_ , and this is how you treat me in return? By eating like an undignified beast, and by going into my rooms, and wearing my things?” 

There’s a hand on her hip, no, her waist, no, her back, and suddenly she’s pulled against him. Her hands find his arms, gripping tight, but not pushing, no, not at all. Rey’s hand slips up his arm to his shoulder, holding herself against him. 

There’s something in his eyes, something alongside the heat. It’s not hatred, not anymore. Perhaps confusion. And then acceptance. 

“You’re lucky you’re so pretty, and so smart, and so sweet,” Lord Ren says, in a softer voice, now. “I thought this trip would let me get away from you, away fro my thoughts of you, away from my fucking _dreams_ of you…”

“Why did you come back, then?” Rey demands. 

“A storm, just an hour from us,” Lord Ren explains. “We had to turn around. And now here we are.”

“Here we are,” she breathes. Yes, here they are. _Thoughts of you, dreams of you._ “You’ve thought of me.”

“I have.”

“Is it as much as I’ve thought of you?”

Oh, but she’s never seen his eyes widen like that before, not even in her thoughts or her dreams. His brows raise, his dark amber eyes widening before he smiles. She’s received small smiles of his before, and has cherished every single one of them. Ones won from being witty, from responding to one of his dinner guests in a way that was perhaps inappropriate and improper, but Lord Ren found amusing all the same. She’s received small, closed lips smiles when she emerges from her room in a new dress, new jewels, something he bought for her and ooooh, she should have realized…

This smile, though, is wider, and she can see his teeth, just a little crooked, and all the more handsome for it.

“More,” he tells her.

“Oh, I doubt that. Who is wearing your shirt in hopes that it would hold your smell, your warmth, _something?”_ Rey asks.

His hand slips beneath his own shirt, bringing forth a small vial hanging on a golden chain around his neck. “Who brought your perfume with him?”

She was starting to think she was insane. She tells him so. He confesses he was thinking the same of himself. Why would he fall in love with someone so messy, so complicated, so … so uncivilized, after so many years alone? Why would she fall for someone who criticized her, who didn’t understand her faults, who didn’t give her time to learn to overcome them? 

They are not perfect. No, they are far from, and there is learning to do for the both of them. But for now, curled up in his lap, wearing his silk shirt and playing with the vial of her perfume around his neck as he rubs up and down her side … well, they will become perfect together.


	19. zombie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize in advance for any OOC lines, traits, or interactions - since these are short prompts and more for entertainment and fun than serious reading, I hold them to a lower standard than the fics I put hours of writing and editing time into.

_**16.** It’s The End of The World as We Know It (the villain wins; zombie apocalypse!AU; any kind of terrible, world-ending scenario you can imagine.)_

Posted June 24th 2018

* * *

 

The inside of the convenience store smells like hot metal and sweet sugar, the lack of AC in the Arizona heat causing the gummy bears and sour worms to melt in the now-warped plastic packaging. There won’t be much to scavenge, Rey knows that already, but maybe she can find a can of iced tea or something that isn’t too destroyed. People go for either water, or the treat that is soda. They don’t often go for the iced tea. 

The smell of rotting flesh hits her once she’s two steps into the place, the sliding glass doors shattered. Glass crunches beneath her hiking boots as her nose crinkles in disgust, the sound of flies buzzing almost deafening. One of the employees, no doubt, is crumpled in a corner, black congealed blood coating his forehead. She doesn’t want to think about the mess of black and gore behind him, so she averts her eyes, and silently thanks whoever killed him first so long ago. 

There’s a single bottle of water in the fridge. It’s hot, sure, but it’s water, and so she grabs it and sticks it in the backpack that she’s duct-taped back together so many times, now. Wonderful thing, duct tape. The snacks are pretty much cleared out, but she can see a few lone Slim Jims that along the back of the shelves, and she snags them up, checking their expiration date. Still good, surprisingly. Score. 

Behind the counter, a few boxes of cigarettes still linger. She doesn’t smoke, never has, but they’re perhaps the best thing she could trade, if she ever comes across other people. So far, she hasn’t seen many actual people - only the remains of them. 

Rey hops over the counter, grimacing at the body behind it, the zombie already rotting away in the Arizona heat. The smell is godawful, and she brings her mask up over her nose as she carefully reaches through the broken glass to get the last few packs. Some still-in-tact glass blocks the last few, and so she grabs a pair of tongs from what she assumes was once a hot dog grill, and smashes the window. 

Bad idea. 

There’s a difference between the smell of old rotting flesh, and still-kind-of-living rotting flesh. A sharp sourness lingers in the flesh of those still walking, and she recognizes it immediately, stilling with the tongs still in her hand. It must have been attracted by the sound of broken glass, fuck, what does she do, she’s trapped behind the counter, she has her revolver, sure, but she’s low on ammo, and –

“Duck!” 

She does as told, getting too close for comfort to the corpse collapsed behind the counter. There’s the sharp sound of a gunshot, and Rey covers her ears so she doesn’t have to hear the splatter. The gunshot’s not horrible, but it’s the splatter, and the sound of a body hitting the floor that always makes her feel sick.

Rey can feel the thud of the zombie’s body on the floor opposite the counter. Her hands still cup her ears as she waits, looking up at the remaining glass in the window and seeing the shape of a man in the reflection, silhouetted by the summer sun. 

“Come on out.”

God, his voice is deep. She stands slowly, her hand on the little revolver she didn’t have a chance to reach for before the hissing and spitting of the undead filled her ears. Over the lip of the counter, she can see dark jeans, a black t-shirt, and a large, pale hand holding a pistol. 

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

She doesn’t exactly believe him, but she straightens, anyway. Better to die standing up than crouching below a sign that says ‘JUICY WEENIES’. “I don’t have much in the way of supplies,” she tells him. Like that would convince him not to shoot her right away. 

Oh, _fuck,_ but he’s pretty. Not just hot, not just handsome, but _pretty._ And huge, built like a brick house, with full lips and dark hair, some pulled back from his face into a half-ponytail. 

It doesn’t matter how pretty he is, though, if he’s going to shoot her and take what she has. 

“I know, I saw your bike outside,” Pretty Boy says, and she watches as he slips his pistol into the holster at his hip. Her own grip relaxes on the revolver at her side, and she takes the cigarettes she has, passing two of the packs over wordlessly. An offer. A thanks. 

Pretty Boy stares at them for a moment, before taking one, and leaving the other. “Been a while since I’ve seen someone.” And then he extends his hand. 

“Me too.” For some stupid fucking reason, she takes his hand, his offer of help over the counter now that there’s another corpse on the other side, and without his help, there’s no doubt she would land right in it. Probably with a disgusting _squish._

His hands find her waist. “Hey!” It’s a sharp snap as she glares at him, but he guides her over the corpse of what looks to be a trucker. She doesn’t look at the body’s face. She doesn’t want to.

Pretty Boy lets go of her as soon as her boots have cleared the decaying body, and oh, fuck, he’s tall. She stares up into dark eyes, seeing pale skin, the subtlest tanline from what looks to be aviators, no doubt from him riding in the sun. 

“You’re not going to last long on that bike,” he tells her. She knows that. 

“I know how to hotwire, I’ll get a car when I want to.”

“I already have a car.”

“What kind?”

“A TIE.”

Shit. Of course he’d have a military-grade vehicle. Of course he’d have something big and protected. And she has a shitty little motorbike that gets shitty gas milage and conks out every dozen or so miles until she kicks it hard enough for it to start again.

“Name’s Kylo. Want to join me?”

The truth is, she does. A TIE is a good car. He has a better gun than she does. And he hasn’t shot her yet. And she has no home, no one to return to, no one to look for. She’s just trying to live. 

And fuck, she’s lonely. 

He offers his hand to her again - not like a shake, no, but outstretched, palm up. Vulnerable. Offering. 

“Rey,” she replies, before reaching to take his hand. “I’m in.”


	20. haunted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize in advance for any OOC lines, traits, or interactions - since these are short prompts and more for entertainment and fun than serious reading, I hold them to a lower standard than the fics I put hours of writing and editing time into.

"Ghosts, hauntings (whether by external source or a dead character.)"

Posted June 23rd 2018

* * *

 

It starts with Cocoa Puffs. 

He swears he bought Cocoa Puffs. He remembers putting them into the bag at the self checkout, he remembers scanning them, he remembers seeing them in the bag as he loaded his car up, he remembers seeing them on the kitchen counter as he unloaded the rest of the groceries. 

But for some reason, Ben Solo cannot find his Cocoa Puffs. 

He’ll admit it, he was lazy. He put the box in the cabinet as-is instead of transferring the cereal to the jars he usually does, so that he can recycle the box and make the cereal keep a little longer. But when he opened the cabinet, bleary-eyed and still wearing his glasses and pajamas, there was no sign of Cocoa Puffs. Just Cheerios, and the sad remains of Frosted Flakes.

If he’d left them at the store, then it wouldn’t be that big of a deal, they weren’t that expensive. But he knows he didn’t leave them at the store, he knows he put them in the cabinet, and so to say he’s confused is a vast understatement. 

And then one of his t-shirts disappears.

His apartment has its own washer and dryer. It’s not like he washed it in a communal laundry room and then forgot it. No, there’s no reason why it should have gone missing. He’s a clean person, too, everything has it’s place. It’s not like he could have left it in a pile somewhere. It would be in the hamper, in the washing machine, in the dryer, in his closet, or on his body. Those are the only places it could possibly be. 

And for some fucked up reason, it is in none of those places.

Ben briefly considers a burglar, but that doesn’t make any sense, either. His expensive watch is in the little leather dish he puts it in. His laptop is charging on his desk. His phone and his wallet and his keys are right where he left them in the organizer by the front door. Why would someone break in and take only a t-shirt and his Cocoa Puffs?

-

“Is this building haunted?”

Breakfast with Maz is a monthly treat. Sure, he has to hand her his rent, but she always invites him in for the best French toast he’s ever had. Honestly, they’re kind of worth the absurd amount of money he gives her. 

“What makes you think that?” The old woman replies. She has to stand on a wooden box to reach the stove. Ben thinks it’s a fire hazard, but the orange paint of the stool has worn away where her feet are, and so if it’s been around that long, it’s probably okay. 

“Some of my things are going missing.” The thief takes his Cocoa Puffs, but refuses to touch his Cheerios. “Weird, specific things.”

“Hmm. Maybe you just misplaced them?” she asks, looking over at him. There’s a tone to her voice he doesn’t recognize, a twinkle in her eye he’s never seen before, but he lets it go when she slips some bacon in front of him.

-

He meets _her_ in the middle of the night. 

He wakes to the sound of his TV. It’s low, it’s soft, probably on one of the lowest volume settings, but he can still hear it. And when he opens the door to his bedroom, he can see the light, too. If he hadn’t had previous experiences with something _weird_ , then he would pass it off as a power surge or something. But instead he grabs one of his slippers, which is pitifully the closest thing to a weapon he has, and he sneaks his way out to the living room.

And then he sees _her._

She’s curled up in the t-shirt he’s missing, a bowl of Cocoa Puffs in her lap as she sits crosslegged and watches the TV. He stares, watching as she takes a few puffs and pops them into her mouth without milk. She’s watching some cartoon. Spongebob, he thinks, recognizing the character’s voice. 

For someone who steals his stuff, she sure is gorgeous. Long, bare legs, brown hair pulled up into a bun, a pretty pert nose and freckles across her cheeks. _Pretty_ , he thinks, just before he throws the shoe at her.

She’s in his house, after all, and she’s wearing and eating his stuff.

She gasps, the bowl of Cocoa Puffs spilling across his couch and floor, and he watches as the flocked slipper goes _right through her._

And then she disappears, the bowl falling right through the air where her legs once were and the t-shirt crumpling as though no one was ever in it.

“Wait!” 

He’s not sure why he’s asking her - whoever she is, whatever she is - to wait, but it’s his instinct as he stares at the Cocoa Puffs on the floor, the t-shirt that was missing for weeks, the bowl that was previously cradled between her bare legs. 

_What the fuck?_

_-_

“Who is she?”

“Who’s who?” Maz asks. Her tone suggests she already knows. Her tone also suggests she doesn’t very much appreciate being woken up at 3 in the morning. 

“The ghost girl in my apartment,” Ben snaps. He doesn’t mean to snap, not really, but _what the actual fuck?_

“Watch your tone,” Maz says warningly, pointing a wrinkled and slightly crooked finger at him before she gestures for him to come in. “Let me explain.”

Her name is Rey, his landlady explains, over a cup of chamomile tea. She was an old tenant, in the 80s. An abusive relationship, Maz explains. Ben can fill in the rest for himself. He’s not sure he wants to, but he can. 

“You must be special. She usually only shows herself to the female tenants who’ve had your apartment,” Maz explains. “They’re usually more understanding.”

“Either that, or she just really likes Cocoa Puffs,” Ben mutters, nursing his cup of tea before looking to the ceiling. 

_Rey._

-

He buys more Cocoa Puffs. He also buys Reese’s Puffs, just for the hell of it, and smiles when he notices those are gone, and the Cocoa Puffs are left behind. _So she prefers peanut butter and chocolate, but will take chocolate … good to know._

Why he’s buying cereal for someone who isn’t alive, he doesn’t know. And he doesn’t want to think about how she can eat, either.

He washes the t-shirt, holding it for a few moments before eventually lifting it to his nose. It smells different. Like lavender, and peppermint. Nothing like anything he uses. He wonders if it’s the smell of ghosts, or just her. 

He washes it, and folds it, and puts it on the end of his bed. By the time he gets home from work, it’s gone. 

The TV turns on again Tuesday, at exactly 2:36 am. He’s waiting, because it’s been exactly a week, and when he hears the low voices of some cartoon - Scooby Doo, maybe - he sneaks out to the living room. 

This time, she’s not eating cereal. She’s just curled up on the couch, her head resting against a pillow. When he comes around the corner, she sits up immediately, and he can see the couch through her for a flicker of a moment. 

“No, please,” Ben pleads. “Stay?”

She looks suspicious. Of course she looks suspicious. But she solidifies, ever so slightly, and says, “You’re Ben.”

Her accent is vaguely British, he notices. “Yes,” he replies. “And you’re Rey.”

“Maz told you.”

“She did.”

“So you know what happened.” Her voice is dark, and bitter. So angry, and sad, for a girl wearing a loose t-shirt and watching Scooby Doo. 

“I do,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

She stares at him for a long moment. Her eyes are dark, stare piercing before she says, in the softest voice he’s ever heard, “I have to go.”

And then she’s gone. 

-

She can’t stay here for long. It’s something he learns in the next few weeks, after short conversations with her. He buys her leggings, so she has something else to wear beneath the t-shirt. She sits next to him on the couch, the pattern of the throw pillow just barely visible through her as she explains that it takes a lot of energy to manifest, but she can do it for a short while. She takes advantage of it to indulge in cereal, and to watch something that makes her happy. For the most part, that’s cartoons, or comedies. He learns she likes Scooby Doo the best, because she enjoys mysteries, but she also likes Friends and the Golden Girls. 

He makes a mental note to buy them on Amazon for her. 

He learns what happened, truly, even though he didn’t ask. She lifts her shirt and shows him the stab wound, and explains that’s why she grabbed the shirt first, so she didn’t have to see it. 

She’s tied to the apartment because she has unfinished business. “I don’t know what it is, unless it’s my student loans,” Rey mutters darkly as she sits beside him, closer than she was a month ago. He chuckles. He can’t see the pillow through her, today. 

-

After two years, they learn that ‘unfinished business’ apparently meant falling in love. Finding her soulmate, finding her fate, some bullshit like that.

Every day, she gets stronger. Every night, she can stay a little longer. Every moment, she gets more and more solid, until she can spend an entire night with him, curled up against his side, and he’s able to have a few moments with her in the morning before she disappears, the sheets collapsing beside him. 

“It’s because you’re a stronger tie than the building,” Maz eventually explains to both of them. She has to come to Ben’s apartment. Rey can’t go downstairs. She can hold his hand, though, and he lifts her fingers to his lips, feeling the icy-cold fingertips against his mouth, and not giving a damn. 

He didn’t think that her coming back was possible. He still doesn’t know how it’s possible. But one day he comes home from work to her shouting his name. 

“Ben! Ben, come quickly!”

She sounds like she’s panicking, and he drops his keys and coat, rushing into the bathroom where Rey’s touching her face. As soon as he crosses the threshold, she grabs his hand and puts it against her cheek. He can feel the tears, can feel … can feel _warmth._

“What-” he stares, wide-eyed, before she grabs his hand and presses it to her neck, her fingers guiding his to her pulse. 

Her _pulse._

As much as he loved her kisses back then, he doesn’t think he’ll ever miss the chill if it means he can feel the warmth, now, and feel her smile of joy against his lips.


	21. rough.

_**2.** Rough sex (biting, scratching, hair-pulling, etc.)  
 **15.**  Last kiss / last time your OTP has sex._

Posted June 23rd 2018

* * *

Her flight is in four hours. 

It takes about an hour to get through security, and she wants some time at the gate. That doesn’t count the half hour it takes to get there, or traffic, should they run into any. 

So that’s already two hours, if they don’t hit any traffic what so ever. If they allow more time for that, and for the line at security if there’s one, then … 

Then they have about an hour to fuck like their life depends on it, and shower. 

“You’re packed, right?” 

It’s a growl against her ear, his breath hot and voice deep. It sends a shiver up her spine, and Rey moans, her nails digging into the black t-shirt covering his broad shoulders. “Mostly … “

“Mostly?”

“Chargers, phone, wallet, passport…” Little things she’ll grab once they’re running out the door so she knows she has them. “I’ll grab them, just fuck me!”

Her boyfriend leans back, the cheap bed they’ve been sharing for the past year creaking with the movement. Oh, fuck, she loves him, she thinks, as she looks up at him. And she won’t be seeing him for at least a few months…

She’s startled out of her dismal thoughts by his hands coming to her hips, grabbing the waistband of her sleep shorts - well, technically, they’re his boxers, but she steals them from him. The rubber band that she uses to tie them to her body flies off as he rips the shorts down her hips and legs, tossing them off to the side. She’s already bare beneath them. She usually is. It means he can slip his hand beneath them in the morning and cup her gently, nothing too hot and heavy, just feeling the warmth of her skin and her curls against his fingers and palm. It means, at night, he can slip his hand beneath the black cotton and stroke her bare ass, kissing at the back of her neck before biting and sucking where he knows her hair will cover. It means if they want to be quick, then they can be quick. 

And now, they _have_ to be quick.

The kiss he gives her is rough, almost bruising. Her hands find his shoulder and his hair, nails scraping against his scalp and fingertips digging into the hot, hard muscle beneath the t-shirt. He tears himself away from her momentarily, leaving her lips hot and stinging before he’s shucking his shirt and coming back to her.

“Shit, Rey!”

Her mouth has found his shoulder. He’s not leaving this bed without looking like he’s been fucking _mauled._ A few years ago, she didn’t have much to call _hers._  She didn’t have an apartment, she didn’t have a car, she didn’t even have a cell phone. And now, she has all of those, plus this gorgeous, gorgeous man who’s grinding against her bare cunt through his flannel sleep pants and growling her name as her teeth sink into his shoulder.

He is hers, and she loves him, and she’s going to make sure he knows it.

The low whimper he makes when she sucks even harder is just a bonus. A bonus that makes her even wetter as she strokes his other shoulder, massaging sweetly to make up for the hickey she’s making.

“Fuck, been too long since you’ve done that.” It’s low and sexy and fuck, she’s so grateful that she can call him from overseas. She’s going to miss his voice. And she’s going to miss his - 

“Ah!” 

“Yeah? You like that?”

He’s going to have scratch marks, too. “Fuck, yes, Kylo…”

He rolls his hips again, groaning as the hand in his hair tugs harshly. “Careful, kitten…”

“Sorry…” She’s not, though, not really. Not when she knows Kylo loves having his hair touched, pulled, stroked, brushed. She does lighten her grip, though, ever so slightly, and on the next gentle tug she gets another low groan, this time more pleasure than pain. 

The two fingers suddenly slipping inside of her catch her off guard, and Rey gasps, arching up against his bare chest as he preps her. “Kylo!”

“Fuck, you’re wet.” There’s awe in his voice. She sighs as he moves to her neck, kissing and nibbling, though not enough to make deep, dark marks. How horrible would that be, to walk into the first day of her fellowship covered in hickeys… “I love you.”

She turns her head, and he moves accordingly so that she can kiss him, soft and sweet. “I love you, too,” she whispers, before she nips at his lower lip, and then it’s full speed ahead once again.

They know each other. She knows he loves the scratches on his shoulders, loves the sting of them under the heat of the shower. He knows she secretly loves having her ass smacked, loves looking in the mirror afterwards and seeing the reddened skin. They know how rough to be, what their limits are, and know just how to make it just right.

She’s going to ache, she knows that. She has painkillers of all types in her carry on, knows which ones to take for which aches when it gets too much. On the plane, she’s going to feel the stinging skin of her ass as she sits for 8 hours. She’s going to feel the soreness of her cunt after being full on pounded, the headboard knocking against the wall that thankfully is on the other side of their living room and not their neighbor’s apartment. She’s going to look in the mirror and see the bites on her hips and thighs.

And with them, she’s going to remember the soft kisses he’d pressed to the back of her neck and shoulders in the shower, the quiet, “I don’t want you to go,” whispered against her lips, the tears they’d both shed before the hot water washed them away.

It’s only a few months, she reminds herself, stroking the back of his hand with her thumb as they drive to the airport. It’s only a few months.

Her other hand comes to her neck, pressing against the bruise he left on the back of it, where her hair and shirt covers. She smiles to herself, looking over to see Kylo bearing his own battle wounds proudly, his pale skin marked by her desperate mouth.

It’s only a few months. And then they can do this all again.


	22. undercover.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize in advance for any OOC lines, traits, or interactions - since these are short prompts and more for entertainment and fun than serious reading, I hold them to a lower standard than the fics I put hours of writing and editing time into.
> 
> WARNING: This chapter contains mentions of pregnancy. I know this is a popular trigger subject, and so I thought it fair to warn those who do not wish to read such a topic.

__**2.** Royal AU  
 **3.**  Modern AU   
 **32.**  Pregnancy Fic  

Posted June 18th 2018

* * *

 

She’s not showing yet. 

She’s not showing yet, but the announcement will be made anyway. The following months will be a flurry of activity, of press and inquiries and tabloid covers. Of course, they’re not as in-the-spotlight as the recently-hitched Meghan and Harry are, and he’s grateful for it. But people still talk, apparently, when young royals reach the next milestone of their lives. 

They didn’t intend to reach it this quickly. They were hoping for another year, maybe, of enjoying each other’s company before starting to try. But one missed pill, and one night of fervid … well, fucking, blew that all away. 

He’s happy. Of course he is, he’s gloriously happy. He’s going to have a child. They’re going to have a baby. Rey is going to get bigger with every month, the life inside of her growing, and then they are going to have a baby. 

Despite all the fears and reservations, he’s excited. He’s ridiculously excited. 

The dress she’s wearing is a carefully chosen Valentino, a sweet and soft mint green. They don’t know the gender yet, can’t know the gender yet, of course not, it’s too early to even feel a heartbeat. But that won’t stop people from guessing the gender from whatever she’s wearing. And so, green it is. 

“Is this really necessary?”

She’s warm in his arms. Her makeup’s already been done, her hair curled by the hands of one of the stylists. Not too much, no, the people love that she was a pauper or a commoner or whatever. Ancient terms, of course, but ones they still use sometimes. He rests his chin on her shoulder, his arms wrapping around her. He has to bend a good bit, but he doesn’t mind. 

Not when the palm of his hand is pressed against the natural curve of her stomach, the curve that will only become larger as the months progress. “Yes. It’s tradition for the announcement to be made from the balcony. And then we’ll release it to the press, and on social media.”

“I wish we could just hold on to the news ourselves a little longer,” Rey confesses. Oh, God, she’s adorable when she’s pouting. And slightly pathetic. She’s not very good at pouting cutely. He’s sure no one else would indulge her if she was judged on the cuteness of her pout, but he will, because Rey is Rey, and he loves Rey. And Rey is adorable no matter what she does.

“Me too. But the sooner we announce it, the sooner the tabloids will stop publishing covers asking what’s taking so fucking long.”

“Yes, because six months after getting married is so long to try for a baby,” Rey says sarcastically, snickering as she looks down at his hand covering her stomach. “… I’m going to have stretch marks,” she says simply. She’s not a vain woman, he knows that. She’s just stating a fact. He hums, both hands sliding around to cup her stomach, his chin still on her shoulder as he looks at her in the mirror.

“Then you will have lightning etched into your skin.”

“My ankles will swell and my feet will hurt.”

“I’ll carry you wherever you need to.”

“I’m going to be craving weird things.”

“I’ll give orders to keep the kitchen stocked.”

“I’m going to be cranky.” 

“I’ll love you whether you’re cranky, nauseated, angry, sleepy, hot, cold, sore, bloated, or stretched. I’ll even love you when you’re inevitably pissed off the day you have to push and you tell me to go fuck myself because I’m not going to be fucking you ever again,” Kylo teases, his hands slipping from her belly to crawl up her sides. 

He discovered on their third date that Rey is very, very ticklish, and he grins as she shrieks in laughter, kicking her feet up and almost dislodging one of her Louboutins. “No, no, stop, Kylo, please, no!” 

He hopes that their child’s giggle is as sweet as hers. 

He looks forward to the day when he can find out. 

For now, though, he’s satisfied with hearing his wife’s giggles, leaning down to give her one more kiss before they greet the masses.


	23. airplane.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize in advance for any OOC lines, traits, or interactions - since these are short prompts and more for entertainment and fun than serious reading, I hold them to a lower standard than the fics I put hours of writing and editing time into.

_**10.**  Airport/Travel AU   
_ _**13.** Detective AU_

Posted June 13th 2018

* * *

 

He honestly can’t think of a worse traveling partner than Rey Jackson.

Sure, his partner is adorable. Having been in the same small town for most of her life, she’s always the first to volunteer to go on a case beyond their county line. And if it’s out of state? She’ll be the first one in his mother’s office, no matter how many other officers she has to bowl down. It’s endearing, really, how much she wants to see the world.

When it comes to actually flying, though…

“Don’t. Say. Anything.”

“Wasn’t planning on it,” Ben mutters, staring at her jiggling leg. “We’re not even on the plane yet, Jackson.” 

“I _said_ don’t say anything!”

7 hours. 7 hours with this girl. He’ll give her credit, though, she’s one of the best detectives on the team. His mother’s private investigation firm is one of the best in the country, and more often than not they get offers from some of the higher ups in society. Like this case. A former Hollywood starlet wanting to know why so much of her hard-earned money is flying right out the door. Of course, she knows who’s taking it. It’s the _why_ she wants. After reading the profile of the husband, Ben’s almost entirely sure that it’s a fairly simple case - all signs point to a pretty significant gambling problem. But there are always other possibilities, and they can’t rule out the more serious, more illegal options.

The starlet and her husband, however, live in Los Angeles. And his mother’s firm is in Washington DC.

“Don’t think it, either.”

“I was thinking about getting a bagel, not about you,” Ben retorts, looking over at the young girl. Though her resume was sparse, his mother decided to take a chance, and the entire firm is glad she did. Not only is she one of the toughest detectives, but she’s invaluable when it comes to the emotional clients. Ben’s seen her sitting with some of the women, and even some of the men, whose partners took everything from underneath their feet. He’s watched them break down in front of her, seen the way her arms wrap around them, seen her lips move - forming soft, sweet words of comfort and reassurance that they’re going to find them the best lawyer, and get this figured out.

For the amount of strength Rey Jackson has, there’s an incredible amount of compassion, too.

And, currently, an absurd amount of anxiety.

Of course it’s even worse on the plane. They haven’t even taken off yet, people are still coming down the aisles, and she has the arm rest in a death grip. None of the seat options are good. In the middle, she feels claustrophobic between him and whoever sits on her other side. The window seat means she’s closest to the engine should one of them decide to go, breaking the window and sucking out the pressure. The aisle is a no-go either, because she’s terrified of the luggage latches opening and tumbling onto her during turbulence.

He ends up sitting by the window. According to her, it’s the safest, because he’ll block the window if it blows out. “Thanks for that,” he’d grumbled, but to see her shaking hurts his heart. If he has to be by the window to make her feel safer, then he’ll be by the window.

She sits next to him, in the middle. The flight attendants say they have an almost but not entirely full flight, and he thanks whatever upper being there is for it. It means that, while Rey is staring straight ahead at the headrest of the seat in front of her, he can look over her head and give warning looks to whoever dares consider sitting next to her. It doesn’t take much convincing - one man almost sits there, but Rey’s white knuckles and shaking legs are a neon sign for NERVOUS FLYER. He wisely decides to move on.

“Hey.”

She startles, bristling like a scared cat as he reaches over to touch her hand. Immediately her palm flips over, and she has his fingers in a death grip.

“I really don’t like flying,” she says, voice meek and soft. For someone who has no trouble talking down some asshole who put his oblivious wife’s name on an embezzlement scheme, it’s strange to hear her sound so scared.

“I know,” he replies, just as softly. “It’ll be okay.”

He’s tempted to tell her the chances of the airplane crashing, how low they are, but that there’s a chance at all will probably make her even more panicked. And Rey is reaching her limit, already.

So he just holds her hand, stroking the back of her hand with his thumb. She’s gripping his fingers so tightly he can see his fingertips turning purple, but he just keeps stroking, trying to soothe her.

“It’ll be okay,” he says quietly, watching her chest rise and fall, going from rapid and damn near panicking to a little slower, her eyes closed, dark lashes against freckled cheeks. “It’ll be okay…”

Her hand tightens on his again as they take off. And then he hears it. 

“This is so stupid.”

“What is?” he asks. 

“Being afraid of flying. People do it every day, all the time,” Rey says through gritted teeth. 

She has a point, but he’s not going to tell her that, no way. Not when he has to sit next to her for 7 hours. So he says the first thing that comes to mind.

“I’m afraid of blenders.”

Well, he was, when he was a kid. When one drinks as many protein shakes as he does, one has to get over the fear of sharp, spinning blades. But the use of the present tense gets the reaction he’d wanted - wide eyes, and her hand loosening on his for half of a second.

“What?” she demands. “But don’t you drink protein shakes?”

“I use those hand mixers, the ones with the metal wire ball that rolls around,” he explains. He also uses normal blenders, but he doesn’t tell her that.

For the first time since he picked her up at her apartment, she cracks a smile. “You’re joking.”

“I’m not. Sharp, spinning blades? No, thank you.”

“Your big ass hand couldn’t even fit down where the blades are,” Rey replies with a snort, shaking her head. 

It’s not much. It was just a snort of a laugh, a sharp little exhale, but it’s enough for him. Her hand’s loosened on his, and while she doesn’t let go as they soar into the air, he’s not sure he wants her to. He continues the soft, gentle stroking of his thumb against the back of her hand, looking out the window and smiling as he gets a much less painful _Thank you_ squeeze from the beautiful girl next to him.


	24. scars. survival. soulmate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize in advance for any OOC lines, traits, or interactions - since these are short prompts and more for entertainment and fun than serious reading, I hold them to a lower standard than the fics I put hours of writing and editing time into.

__**24.**  Soulmate AU   
 **39.** Survival/Wilderness Fic    
 **96.**  Scars

Posted on June 7th 2018

* * *

 

The scars are already stretched across her skin when she’s born. It’s common, the nurse says to her mother. It means that her soulmate has already been born. That they have already started getting into trouble. A clumsy toddler, perhaps, not quite getting the hang of their motor skills. Or a daredevil four year old. 

Her mother is more concerned about the marks ‘destroying’ her daughter’s looks, than being delighted that her daughter will be loved some day.

She wakes up to a new one when she is four, a slash across her thigh. Whenever she wishes to wear shorts, or dresses, her mother presses concealer, powder, concealer onto her skin to disguise what looks like a burn. The reassurance from the pediatrician that it will fade as her soulmate’s scar fades isn’t much of a reassurance to her mother. She wants it gone  _now._

Years after, in the small room of her foster father’s home, she will trace the marks that her mother so loathed, and make up stories about them. Maybe her soulmate rides horses in a grand and sprawling field, like the movies her foster father puts in to keep her quiet and in one place. Maybe her soulmate rides bikes and does tricks, like the kids at the skatepark she passes on her two mile walk to school. Maybe he’s like her, and climbs through dumpsters for cans that she can take to the recycling plant for a few cents. That’s where she got the gash on her skin, after all.

Four years turn into five, then six. And then on and on until she is 19, and sitting on the plane to fly across the country. The farther away from Plutt, the better. He gave her food and a roof over her head, but in terms of any life advice, compassion, or nurturing, there was none. She figured out college on her own, and stares out the window as they fly over the clouds.

“Do you live in New York?” she asks the man next to her. He has his laptop open, black and sleek and more expensive than anything she’ll ever own.

“Yes.”

Rey’s learned enough in this life to know that when someone answers that rudely, they don’t want to be bothered. She hums and looks away just enough to be convincing. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see the dark waves of his hair, the paleness of his skin. Moles are dotted across his face, small and dark, like the connect the dots pictures Plutt gave her whenever he didn’t want to deal with her. Her gaze follows the slick black blazer down to the white cuffs, the gold cufflinks. A businessman, more than likely. A good one.

Her gaze stops on his watch. Or, more specifically, the scar just above his watch. It’s pale now, but she can see the jagged edges, almost identical to the one on her own hand she received when she reached into a dumpster and cut her hand on a piece of torn beer can.

“Can I help you?”

His voice is cool, and when she looks up at him, his gaze is finally directed towards her. Eyes of warm brown are looking at her expectantly, and she struggles to find the words to say. ‘Hey, I think we may be soulmates?’ ‘Did that scar come from somewhere or did it just appear?’ ‘What’s the story behind your scar? Do you even have one?’

She licks her lips, her mouth suddenly dry, and opens her mouth. He watches her, his brow furrowing for every second that she’s silent. “I-“ Rey starts, reaching for the sleeve of her sweatshirt so that she can show him her own scar.

She doesn’t get the chance to. There’s a loud bang from the other side of the plane, followed by shrieking and screaming, and then her stomach plummets with the rest of the world around her.

-

She’s more than sure the Appalachian Mountains are lovely, when one has a car and food and water and a set plan of what the hell is happening.

Right now, she has none of those things.

Rey wakes to the smell of something burning, and something like gasoline. Everything aches. Something is digging into her cheek. Her leg burns.

Her potential soulmate is not a businessman. He is a doctor. A surgeon. A surgeon who has a small first aid kit in his carryon. She cries on her potential soulmate as he pries the shrapnel from her leg and pulls the skin together with butterfly bandaids and more than a little disinfectant. Everything hurts. He smells like coffee, and smoke.

He says they should wait for help. The dark clouds above and the still-flaming, potentially-dangerous wreckage say otherwise. She made shelters in the backyard of Plutt’s farm to get away from him. A safe place she could crawl into whenever the bruises he pressed into her arm ached too much. He always found her eventually, of course, but it was temporary relief.

The little lean-to they manage to construct barely contains the both of them, and what they recovered of their things. His laptop is completely shattered. The one she saved up for for three and a half years is broken in half. Hopefully she’ll get some cash from the airline to replace it.

She doesn’t mention the scar as they sit beneath the lean-to, staring through the sides to the world around them. The rain that starts to fall is cold, but his shoulder is warm through his blazer. He’d given it to her after she sacrificed her hoodie to tear up and use as a makeshift tarp, giving them a bit more protection from the thunderstorm.

“That scar on your thigh – where did you get it?”

His voice is low. Soft. Like the feeling she gets whenever she splurges on a good, chocolatey dessert. Like when she wrapped herself in the one thick blanket Plutt gave her and watched the storm outside. Comfort. His voice is comfort.

“It’s my soulmate’s,” she explains.

“And the one on your hand?”

“I was dumpster diving for cans I could take to be recycled. Get a few cents for them. Someone had smashed a beer can, and it cut my hand open.”

In her heart, she already knows it’s identical. But it skips anyway as he takes her hand – God, his hands are big, and warm, so warm – and compares the two. Analyzing the curve of it, the edges, the paleness after so many years.

“… what’s your name?” Damn his voice. Damn his eyes. Damn the fact that they’re tucked close, his nose almost brushing hers as they huddle together under the best lean-to she could manage after so many years. Damn everything.

“… Rey Jakksun,” she replies finally.

“… I think we might be soulmates, Rey.” There’s an awe in his voice that does something funny to her chest. “I’m Ben.”


End file.
